


The Collision Principle: Anniversary

by MadamMortis



Series: The Collision Principle [3]
Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: Abuse, Aftermath of Violence, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Blood and Violence, Drama & Romance, Drug Addiction, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, F/F, F/M, Friendship/Love, Graphic Description, Humor, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Psychological Drama, Rape Recovery, Rape/Non-con Elements, Recreational Drug Use, Romance, Sexual Assault, Sexual Tension, Sexual Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-16
Updated: 2018-09-05
Packaged: 2019-05-24 02:57:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 35,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14946320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MadamMortis/pseuds/MadamMortis
Summary: Part Two (officially) of the Collision Principle series. A new day dawns in Goodneighbor, but what shadows will be cast in the light?Follows on directly from The Collision Principle.





	1. Branch

**Author's Note:**

> DISCLAIMER: You know the drill. Fallout 4 ain't mine and never shalt be. No caps come my way from the writing of this fic.
> 
> A/N: Hi everyone! It's been a while and this really is a very tiny chapter to commence the story but honestly? I just wanted to get the ball rolling and I figure since I have this piece done already, I might as well be posting it. It's just collecting dust otherwise. And it lets you all know that I'm still here getting stuff done! Obviously, chapters in this new part 2 series are going to be smaller than previous updates. This is mainly in the hopes that I can produce content a little quicker here and there. Not to mention how insanely busy I am with work and other life commitments. Hope you enjoy (for what it is) and I shall see you all at the end!
> 
> Oh and of course, if you haven't read Collision Principle I would recommend doing so first. As this is a direct follow on, it won't make much sense otherwise! ;) 
> 
> WARNINGS: Explicit sexual content in this chapter. NSFW, ya'll! Please read with discretion!

>   ** _"The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it. Resist it, and your soul grows sick with longing for the things it has forbidden to itself". ~_** _Oscar Wilde ~_

**John Hancock**

When I’d been a boy of about six or seven, Diamond City experienced one of its very few and admittedly, far between times of impoverishment. It came about as a coincidental pincer attack between a formidably stocked Gunner blockade (brought about by the then town Mayor having offended the Acting Captain of the local Gunner platoon in some way or another) and a heavy and violent storm front that passed over from the Eastern seaboard and bombarded the city with more rain than most any of us would see in a month alone.

The rains lasted little less than four to five days but by then the damage was done. Most of the livestock drowned; a devastating happenstance of course and yet unsurprising, given that there wasn’t much in the way of ‘higher ground’ to move them to. The practicalities of living in a stadium. And the majority of our crops, even those in the greenhouses, had been destroyed. Uprooted, expunged and swept away.

Most expected that the shacks of the lower stands wouldn’t survive the deluge. And of course, we wouldn’t have done; if the folks living in them hadn’t soldiered together and refurbished the manual drain valve three or so years earlier. My father had been an extremely vocal and persistent advocate on the point. I suppose because he didn’t want to see his family swept away at the first sign of heavy rain.

Nonetheless, in spite of years back breaking effort to avoid such a thing, I do remember the four of us having to up and away to the grandstands just to be on the safe side. I’d been awful worried about our home but I can’t pretend it hadn’t been something of a treat to perch myself up at the Colonial Taphouse (dirty ankles and all) and stare out over the flooded city. The upper-class ponces hadn’t bothered to pretend as though they weren’t appalled with having to share floor space with the near drowned rats of the ‘lower end of the lower end’ but practicality wasn’t such a novelty then as it appears to be in this day and age. Offense or not, they were obligated to tolerate us. More than can be said for the much maligned ‘Reign of McDonough’.

With the city’s crop plantations destroyed and heavy silt and sewerage overrun preventing the replanting of seeds for some time, fresh food became a premium as valued and sort after as I imagine oil of the old world had been. The Gunners had practically isolated us from the surrounding Commonwealth and prevented all traders from entering into the city to refresh our stocks. Times were desperate. The mayors’ office instigated a sort of coupon system; by which the holder had access to… shit, I couldn’t even tell you now. Roughly two to three pieces of either fresh fruit and vegetables twice a week? A cut of meat near to the turn, if you were lucky? You can imagine the amount of fraud that went on; so desperate people were to get a taste of anything fresh. Meat, vegetable, or fruit; so long as it wasn’t canned, packaged or retrograde refried reconstituted centuries old army swill. I remember one of our neighbors boys, who would have been little older than me at the time, being dragged out of his parents shack and whipped about the legs with an old jug cord because he had stolen a nigh mouldy handful of tarberries from the market food stall. Which should give you some indication as to just how seriously the restrictions were taken.

Our section of the city was hit hardest of all. As you can imagine, the majority of the produce was sequestered and prioritized for the rich elite. As some of the very poorest of the working class (my mother being the recipient of a modest pension, given her hearing disability) we often found more practical uses for our produce coupons as opposed to cashing them in. Often, we would be forced to sell them for the caps it would bring us, so that we could purchase medicine, fresh water, soap and clothing. McDonough’s stomach made noises more often than not; as though it were twisting itself into a mean, irritable knot of frustration. I became very thin very quickly and though I remember being perpetually hungry, I never once had a mind to steal. Even when the smells of baking and fine cooking would waft down from the upper stands; provoking my appetite in such a way that it seemed to rip and tear at the chambers of my being until I damn near crumpled up there on the street. My Ma and Pa were vehemently opposed to stealing and had drilled it into me since I’d been old enough to comprehend much of anything. I would sooner have sliced the tips from my fingers one at a time and eaten those before regressing to the point of taking that which I hadn’t earned.

It was a month or so into the Depression that I came across the Wild Mutfruit Tree. I’d been frog hopping along the rooftops; one of my very favorite activities, given my oft inability to ‘sit still and simply behave’ and had just contented myself to a comfy perch within the abandoned stadium seats when I spotted the branch mere meters above my head. It must have grown up from a patch of earth that had gathered in the cracked concrete, I imagined and it was as much a miracle as was anything I had experienced in my young life. Made the more wondrous for the very fact that it nursed on its farthest hanging and somewhat brittle looking branch of the very plumpest and juiciest looking Mutfruit’s I had ever seen.

More likely it wasn’t anything so wondrous as my memory recalled but you must remember that I hadn’t so much as tasted a piece of fruit for over a month. When my family had traded in their coupons, my mother prioritized vegetables; aware that our bodies required the nutrients more than they required the sugars and whatnots. Fruit was fast becoming a luxury item at this late stage of the game and were the near exclusive property of the upper stands. I’d imagined myself going without the taste of one for many months to come. I might as well have asked for something so ludicrous as a bar of chocolate.

Any other time I wouldn’t have risked a climb such as that. The seats were decayed and splintered; jutting out from the concrete treads such as the teeth of a vile old man, protruding from hard, rank smelling gums. I’d known them to collapse under weight so slight as my own and one wrong step could send a body skittling down the grandstand to a violent conclusion below. But I hadn’t a thought for that at the time. All I could see was that perfect, ripe piece of fruit; dangling ever so elusively. Some might have suggested that it was out of reach but even as a boy I had never allowed myself to believe that anything was beyond my ability to attain. I just never fooled myself into believing that the journey would be simple.

It had taken over a half hour to carefully navigate my path up through those chairs and I’d come to grief a number of times on each and every protruding piece of this, that and the other along the way. Ordinarily I would have been steamed enough to bite through a broom handle but the Mutfruit occupied my thoughts in a way nothing had done before. As a boy who possessed inherent difficulties with calming down enough to focus on things, it was a surprising development. And, as it transpires, a sign of things to come.

There wasn’t much to the tree, so I doubted I would be safe in resting the majority of my weight against its insubstantial slip of a trunk. So, I thought I might bend the branch back in towards myself and pull the Mutfruit in. The best laid plans as they say and one which, in spite of my best intentions to keep my weight off of the trunk, went quickly and spectacularly to shit.

You see, the tree might have survived the rains because it had been too high up to torn apart by the floods. But the deluge had certainly softened the small patch of earth about its roots; roots that were, on such a young tree, only just barely wending their hair thin tendrils into the dirt with all the tenacity of an infant clutching upon its mothers proffered finger.

I felt a jolt in my chest as the tree lurched and I, offset by the sudden movement, toppled forward and swung about the tiny trunk like a kitten swinging from a curtain. My right hand caught the branch upon which dangled the precious Mutfruit and it snapped, shifting my centre of balance and sending us both toppling to the concrete below.

It wasn’t much of a fall, but I had landed on my wrist, which was the devil of the thing. I found out later that I had snapped it too, which meant a cast for some weeks following and a scar that sent a few folks to worrying that I had attempted to take my life long before I had reached the age where one inevitably stumbles upon those things that make life worth living.

I could care little for the pain. The Mutfruit was a mite battered from the drop but the juice leaking from the berries made the wall inside of me burst just as easily as their supple skin. I dabbed it up off of the concrete with what fingers still functioned; suckled each drop down as though it were the water of life. Jammed in berry after delicious berry, almost choking for want of self-control. It was as though my body so desperately needed it and was sucking it all in quite against my will; rewarding me with a primordial pleasure in exchange for that infinitesimal something that for so long had been denied.

And when I’d finally dragged myself home, nursing my wrist and a liberally purple rimmed mouth, I expected my mother to cry and give me a sound thrashing; because surgical expenses were just one more thing our family were ill to afford at the time. But she surprised me; giving me a look that I thought to be very understanding.

And as she fashioned a rudimentary splint to my arm and rustled up some of our ever so precious painkillers, I got to thinking that her reaction should not have surprised me in the least. After all, my mother and I are very much alike. She knew, better than most what it meant to want something so intensely that nothing could matter so much as plucking it from the vine and feeling the sweet juice burst forth across your tongue.

 

**_Goodneighbor - Current Day..._ **

 

“You’re going to… have to answer that… eventually, ya know?”

“Like Hell.” I slid my palms along the slippery slope of Eve’s back, used the leverage to ease myself up enough to kiss to flushed lips. Felt her nipples dip and graze across my chest as she lowered herself in turn to meet me. We writhed together; issuing soft utterances of heat and passion along the mutual line of our jaws. “After how long I waited for this? …Damned if _they_ can’t wait a minute more!”

I was aware that whatever the Watch wanted to tell me had to have been an emergency. No way known otherwise would they have risked interrupting me at a time like this. They knew what tonight meant for me… to have joined with Eve after so long of desiring her from the interminably tiny distance that had persisted between us. But I’m not certain I could have stopped regardless of what was on offer. Bad enough to have battened it down that afternoon but now… _now!_ An army of fucking Behemoth Super Mutants closing in on the city with an arsenal of Fat Boy’s and personal agendas couldn’t have budged me so much as a whit.

My eyes darted across her body, suspended so deliciously above my own and swaying to and fro like a tree caught in the lure of a deepening breeze. Her breasts shuddered and bounced against her chest with every thrust; a sight sweet enough to drive me teetering to the very brink of my self-control. But it was to the space which joined us that I found my eyes drawn like a magnet; a dualistic desire to both reaffirm the fact that we were at last connected and to further peak my already profuse arousal. I savoured that indistinct visual line; the one that signified where I ended and she began. The one that rose and fell as she lifted herself once more, exposing the shining root of my cock before plunging her lush cunt down with an intent I might almost describe as ferocious.

It pushed a fast, yet deeply rendered groan from me. And a sort of sidelined chuckle, to see that for her meagre protest, Eve wasn’t taking great pains in convincing me to up and abandon our union. Not that I would have been receptive to such a thing. Perhaps it was little different to that Mutfruit from all those years ago; that deprivation for something made the eventual culmination that much sweeter? Absence makes the heart grow fonder, as they say. But to be there at long last with the woman I had come to love so fervently, I failed to recall a time in all my years that I had ever experienced sex quite as exquisite as this. And yet I know that I have enjoyed incredible sex in my life; where the physical pleasure might have been even greater than that which I experienced with Eve. It was our emotional and mental connection, I believe, that took it to a whole other level; which was something I had never shared with another living soul.

I had never been in love before and so, had never the chance to go to the bed with someone for whom I felt such a thing. To say nothing of the delights of her body! How the candlelight burnished her flesh so that she appeared to shine like polished gold. The way the sweat streaked down her chest, to pattern soft droplets upon the curve of her stomach and upper thighs. How the tender slopes of her supple puss delicately cupped the swelling mound of her clit. I thought back to myself buried between her thighs; swilling my tongue up, over and inside of her. I tilted my head back, weakened by the memory and moaned as she bounced once more. It was good and I was so _damn close_ … She just… couldn’t move fast enough to push me up over the edge.

I slipped my hands around Eve’s waist and pressed my palms to the slick globes of her ass. Pinched in with my fingers before, having pressed my lips down together tight, pulled her hard to the right and worked my core to bring myself along with her. We might have gone off of the side of the bed but I shot my right leg out at the last minute and caught my heel on the sheets, using the leverage to bring Eve back towards the center of the bed. I kept myself buried up inside of her throughout the whole indelicate manoeuvre and she was laughing, apparently enjoying herself.

I brushed my fingertips along her jawline, lifted her chin and looked deep into her eyes. Kissed her. My hip still felt a little stiff but the pain wasn’t nearly so bad. I gave an experimental thrust and was rewarded with the sublime sensation of Eve’s cunt closing in on me tightly from all sides. The feverish moan this evoked from her in turn was just as sweet to my ears as the sensation currently gripping my cock and I matched it pitch for pitch.

I found I could move now without being hindered by the pain and swiftly made up for lost time; gripping the headboard of the bed and thrusting up hard to meet Eve in the middle. Her mouth dropped open and she gasped, arching her back and slamming her eyes shut. She took the headboard between her hands as well, pushing back to meet each of my thrusts forward; our movements rocking the foundations of the bed. I plunged fast, felt her squeeze those delicious rings of muscle about me, heard her breaths escalate to short, fractured gasps. She dropped her knees down to either side of us; pressed them to the bed so that she was splayed atop the sheets like a frog waiting to be dissected. I sat back just enough to take in the view this afforded me and the sight of my cock piercing straight up through the flexing lips of her cunt…. It made the tip of my dick ache in the most unbearable way. Worse than it had that afternoon. Fast as I could fuck her, it wasn’t fast enough.

I shoved my good knee up, sliding it just beneath the awning of her own and braced against the mattress. Used its leverage to give a little extra sauce to my hips. I was slamming into her so hard and fast that I accidentally pushed her head up underneath one of the pillows; which slid upward as it met the headboard and then gradually tilted over so that it flipped and landed square on her face. She snorted a laugh; the pillow masking all but her toothy smile and I reached down plucking it off of her.

“Sorry.” I chuckled, brushing some damp curls of hair away from her forehead. She laughed and pressed a few sweet kisses against my lips.

“All… good…” She puffed, tilting her head back as I slid my palm down to cup the left cheek of her ass. I lifted her, shoved the pillow in under her rump and then slowly drew myself inch by gradual inch; leaving only the head of my cock poised between the lips of her vagina. I saw her steel herself; flex her hands and form tighter fists still against the headboard, aware of just what it was that I was about to do. Our spines matched in their arch, bellies sliding together as I drove myself back down inside, rolling and thrusting to match the rhythm I’d previously established. The way that Eve lay spread out beneath me, with her legs wide open and arms pinned above her, was as infuriating as it was mouth-watering. We seemed to touch only where we met in the center. And it was her touch more than anything that solidified the connection between us.

I took her wrists in my hands, prised them from the headboard of the bed with little resistance. It was difficult to maintain my rhythm in the midst of adjusting her, but I managed; pulling her arms down slowly and directing her palms to rest against my abdomen. Her touch felt sweetest here; for it was one of the few places I was both extra sensitive and where women were least likely to place their hands. They’d rub half-heartedly over my shoulders if they exposed themselves from my shirt, or give a glancing rub to my chest if it peeked between buttons. But that line there, right above my trousers; the v-line crease that encased the path to my groin. My stomach, my abdomen… it felt so… sensitive. Eve’s fingers flexed and cupped to it; as though she were clutching a brimming cup between her hands. Savouring and balancing the contents before devouring it between ravenous lips.

“Touch me…” I murmured; aware of the demanding nature of my tone and yet unable to tamper down the ferocity of my desire. Eve’s palms roiled their way across the ridges of my flesh, carving a path upward through dripping trickles of perspiration before gliding downward with the firm press of her fingertips. Her eyes flickered open here and there, looking up over my body before meeting my eyes with such oblique passion that it sent an electric jolt all the way down my spine, through my tailbone and further still, to bury itself in the very tip of my penis. I put my own palms to her inside thighs; to that splayed crease of flesh which dipped and then arched upward to form the mound of her vagina. Praised the Lord once more for her astounding flexibility, which afforded a view more astonishing than I could have ever imagined.

“Lower…” I gasped and moaned to feel her fingers graze and brush that sensitive band of flesh inches little from where our bodies joined. My thrusts hastened further, teasing closer still the orgasm I’d very nearly toppled into when Eve had lowered herself on top of me so exquisitely earlier. God, it would have been so easy to have blown my load then and there but I bit it back with everything I had, wanting us to enjoy the act of being together just that while longer. And for once in my life I was pleased to have staggered my restraint.

Her noises helped. Much like earlier in the day she didn’t yelp and shriek and carry on like some ridiculous woman on a pornographic Holotape but emitted still lovely little gasps and groans and purrs of pleasure. Sometimes, when I went in particularly deep, she would tilt her head back, seem to hold her breath suspended from behind a mouth poised into a shape as round as the top of a teacup and then shudder that same breath back out in jagged segments. Perhaps with a little squeak far back in the throat; coupled with a hike of the shoulders and a twist of the head to the side. A few times I thought I was hurting her and slowed for a moment, only for her to dig her fingernails into the cleft of my ass and push back harder against me still.

My heart was thumping so hard by this stage that I had little pause for rational though and held to her tightly; driving in hard and fast and groaning to feel the tight, hot grip of her about me. That near perfect O that her body made about the base of my dick. It seemed a surreal thing; to see myself sliding in and out of her so completely, to be filling her up. I leaned in to lap my tongue across her left nipple; felt the dappling of her areola and closed my lips about the tip of her breast. Kissed and sucked. Had a tiny internal chuckle to think that not so many hours earlier, I’d been wondering whether Eve would accept so much as my kiss. And here now… My God, how very quickly your life could change in an instant!

“Oh God… John… oh, that feels _good_ …” Eve groaned into my ear, her palms sliding across my sweaty hipbones and sanctioning themselves to my lower back. Though I knew it was coming, I could little prepare myself for the intensity of the pleasure and loosed my lips from about Eve’s breast; moaning for broke as her fingernails slowly and sensually raked upward; burnishing the healing welts of my spine.

The sensation seemed to bury itself in the root of me and I had a thought to say something to Eve; to allow her to prepare herself for what was to happen next. She had after all demonstrated enormous trust in letting me get on in there in the first place without protection. Not to mention, we hadn’t talked about whether she was comfortable with me coming inside of her; regardless of the fact that I hadn’t any diseases and wasn’t able to get her pregnant. As my stepfather had once told me, it was never a man’s place to assume that a woman was naturally on board with having that big old mess upended on her.

It all happened too quickly though, such as it might have done when I’d been a youngster; experiencing the virtues of a woman’s flesh for the very first time. A year is, after all, a long wait and to feel her fingers light to those wounds that, thanks to her, were merely that, was far more than I could handle.

I hurtled spectacularly to the edge, fought the overwhelming urge to throw my head back as the passion overtook me and instead forced my gaze down to meet with her own. The gold in her eyes seemed to glow brighter still and the pull of hand to my lower back said without words that I was right where she wanted me.

**~**


	2. Fume of sighs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I crouched by the bed, keeping my eyes on the door whilst scrabbling about with my fingertips to try and find the leather sheathe that contained my knife. It had dropped from the band of my pants when I’d tugged them off earlier and I’d felt it hit the ground with a dull thud. Hadn’t really cared at the time but now I was mentally kicking myself for being remiss of something so important. Eve’s handbag would be a better bet; given the large calibre magnum she kept in there but the damn thing was sitting up on the kitchen bench. I wanted to be armed before I got any closer to the front door and whoever was lurking behind it...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> DISCLAIMER: You know the drill. Fallout 4 ain't mine and never shalt be. No caps come my way from the writing of this fic.
> 
> A/N: Hello again, my freaky darlings :) I hope that life is treating you all well. It has been some time but I have a new chapter, at long last. So much for keeping them shorter. Sorry to those of you that I kept waiting for an update but I did get there in the end. Life is just crazy busy these days and I had very little time left to get things written in the evenings and so… massive delay! Anyhow, I hope that you all enjoy!
> 
> WARNINGS: Explicit sexual content, violence, gore and mature things. Beware ye who enters!

 

> _“History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce.” **~ Karl Marx ~**_

****

**John Hancock**

**_One month ago – Salem…_ **

“Rarr! _Rarr!_ ”

I stared; quizzical yet undeniably amused by the situation in which I found myself. Legs sore, mind as weary as each and every muscle wending its way through my body and forced to fend off the advances of an equally overtired Evelyn Anne Hallows, who was charging at me with a roughed up old traffic cone fixed to her head.

“What the hell are ya doin’?” I chuckled, grasping the top of the cone in my hand and steering it away from my midsection for around the thousandth time. Eve straightened up, lifting the corner of the cone and peering out nigh innocently from beneath the awning it created.

“Being a unicorn.”

“You’re bein’ a ‘somethin’, that’s for sure.” I said, attempting to step on by her and receiving yet another poke to my shoulder for my efforts. I took exception to the playful jab, wrestling her arms aside and then locking my own about her midsection; pinning her backpack to the line of my chest. She dissolved at once into uncontrollable giggles; a sign of her either being A) Over exhausted or B) Strung out on something she really ought to have been sharing. “The hell you been smoking?”

“Nothing! Just high on life.” She insisted, twisting free from my grip and trotting off ahead of me with the cone still perched firmly atop her melon. All too appropriate for the locale in which we were currently traversing, come to think of it. “Sue me for being happy.”

Well, I could hardly blame her for being in a good mood. We were, after all making good progress on gathering those specialist parts for the Molecular Relay and had survived more than a few life or death situations since parting with the others at Bunker Hill. Any number of reasons to put a spring in a person’s step. (Though one had to query just what sort of unicorn went around going ‘ _Rarr Rarr’_ but hey… no evidence to the contrary, right?)

What I suspected, however and with ample evidence to support the theory, was that Eve was starting to burn through the last of the fumes in her metaphorical kiln. We’d been stomping the greater Commonwealth together for at least a month by this stage and neither of us had taken much time off to recover from the Rolling Ranch. Never mind everything else that had since landed in our laps. She was tired. _I_ was tired. And exhaustion such as that manifests itself in different ways. For me, I stopped pretending that I was anything other than my biological age. Didn’t talk as much, got a bit quieter, a bit more focused on putting one foot in front of the other. Eve on the other hand, got giddy. Like a child insisting it wasn’t tired but rubbing their swollen eyes as they all but melted into a petulant puddle on the floor.

I’d seen it before and whilst the happenstances could be quirky and borderline adorable, it usually culminated in an emotional, drunken exchange during the sunset hours of the evening. One of which stood out in particular; with Eve hurling her guts spectacularly into a barely there hedgerow, while I kept her propped about the middle and tried between each tearful heave to assuage the emotion that was ever so tangible in her tone and yet illegible so far as her communiqué went.

It had taken _hours_ to get her calm enough so she could sleep but little wonder with alcohol being a depressant and Eve being in an ‘at the end of her tether’ frame of mind. I didn’t much fancy a repeat. It’s hard to watch someone you’ve grown to love tearing themselves apart from the inside out. Harder still when it sets you back about five days in the tiredness stakes and you start to seriously wonder if you’ll be of any more use than a shit flavoured lollypop next Raider attack rolls around.

With that vein in mind, I quickened my step; reaching up to pluck the dull orange witches hat from Eve’s noggin. I took a hurried glance about at our surroundings (mostly woodland and the crumpled foundations of outlying houses) and pitched the stupid thing as far as my weary old arm could heft it.

“Not to bust anymore of your bubble than I done already but it probably ain’t the best idea to be walkin’ along with a big orange cone on ya head.” I said, responding at once to Eve’s expression of offended consternation. Having given herself a few moments to consider where I was coming from (longer still, then if she had been well rested) she consolidated my position with a jerky little nod of her head, sending the longer strands of hair to the right whipping across her cheek. It had grown longer these last few weeks, I noticed and wondered whether she might in fact have been considering letting it grow back. Not that a beautiful face like hers could go wrong when it came to a hairstyle but it was hard to forget how exceptionally striking she looked when it had been long and pinned back. Sometimes… I had this strange, sneaking suspicion she might have been… hiding behind her bangs. Something I couldn’t begin to understand, given the exquisite angles of her jaw, cheeks and temples but then she had always been a little obtuse when it came to recognizing her own beauty.

“True.” Eve remarked, acknowledging that the getting around with a big orange fuck off traffic cone on ones head wasn’t the shrewdest of disguises. She did little to improve her situation however; bouncing on ahead of me with her pack jigging about with much clanging and jangling of its assorted internals. She hopped a stone support beam of what had once been a familial residence and balanced there; like a Bighorner with a mind to escape its preoccupied handler. Peered about dramatically with her hand pressed to her sweat pricked forehead. “Not there’s so much as a soul to be seen out here.”

It was true that the land in Salem was mostly flattened out and provided little in the means of cover. You could fairly much make out to each cardinal direction just who and what might have been coming for you. But it wasn’t enough validation to go getting cocky over; something Eve would have not been remiss of, if her head hadn’t been filled with fluff.

“Knowin’ our dumb luck, we’d be stumbling across Barbados’s fat ass camped out behind a tree or something.” I said, a cool edge hemmed to my tone which struck the humor from her face like a drain opening up somewhere behind her eyes. I lit to her side, reaching one hand up so as to help her down from the unsteady perch. She pressed her fingers into my palm; a little clammy on account of the still warm weather. Her eyes focused on the ground as her sneakers made contact; looking far more sober now than I had seen her in some hours. You could almost hear the memories streaming across her brain like an old movie reel.

“Don’t say that shit…” She said softly and the distress in her voice was enough to weaken whatever minor irritation I had been nursing. It served to remind me that in spite of her intelligence, courage and maturity, that she was still a young woman. Much younger than me, in fact. And not yet as hardened to the realities of this world as I sometimes allowed myself to believe.

I took my hand from her own; lent it instead to the curve of her shoulder and pulled her in. Touched ribcage to ribcage. The heat condensed between the fabric of our shirts and I could feel the jut of her hip, rising and falling against me as we continued walking.

“Sorry.” I said, very much meaning it. Wanting to think of that evil bastard just as little as she did. It was still… fresh, after all. What we had gone through. The stinging, itching marks on my back evidence enough that for all the steps we had taken from the Ranch, it continued still to roll its merciless path through our minds.

All the worse for the fact that Barbados was still out there. The Haberdasher, too. We’d run afoul of the both of them in the last four weeks alone. Still wore the bruises and nursed the fear and palmed the paranoia. At any moment, could they be…? Well, we knew the Haberdasher was capable of such things. He was perhaps an even greater threat to us than Barbados, given his unsettling ability to sort of Ninja up out of nowhere.

But Barbados… he coveted a far more personal hatred. And that was a fear you could never strain from your mind. I could never rest easy; knowing full well what he might have done should he ever catch us at a weak moment. Would do to _Eve_ ; not just to punish her for her show of spunk back in the Ranch, but to hurt me in turn too. The sort of bastard that would drag all sorts of foul, maliciousness out… Just broaching the thought spurred my adrenal levels through the roof and I found myself constantly pitching my gaze over my shoulders every few seconds or so; to the point that I had developed a permanent strain down either side of my neck.

Being who she was, Eve translated my thoughts fluently through what I hope was the subtlest shifts of my expression and pressed her cheek to my shoulder; her arm finding purchase about my waist. It wasn’t perhaps the safest way for us to be walking but we had room a plenty about us and the landscape was void of life for so far as I could tell. I permitted myself the indulgence. The day was warm but it was good and fine to feel her embrace. And even wearing those baggy jeans that did nothing for her figure, I thought she looked lovely. I liked how they slunk down low over her hips; just shy of glimpsing the crown of her pubic region. I’d taken note of a small freckle just there above the bronze button of her pants that I had never really paid attention to before now. Even such a tiny observation as this served to remind that there was ever more to be learned about one another still. I thought about kissing it. I thought about it a lot more than a gentleman should.

We walked on in silence for some moments; appreciating the quiet and the comforting pressure of our arms to each other. To the right of the road, the most intact building we had stumbled across thus far came into view; a dilapidated, embarrassingly gothic looking church. Surprisingly intact. If I’d been a religious man, I might have divined something from that, but I wagered it to be little more than coincidence.

I took its appearance as some manner of sign however and gestured with the hand that wasn’t currently pressed to the curve of Eve’s bicep.

“Hey… we’ve made some good ground today. What say we stop and rest our dogs a bit?”

It was reminder enough for Eve to drag her arm up and check the time on her Pip Boy. She gave an ironic yet equally tired snort of self-reflection when she saw just what hour the day had passed on into.

“Geez, is that the time already? I thought my thirst would’ve let me know.” She looked over towards the Church and tilted her head towards me, lip curled to match the near perfect Shepherds crook she’d made of her eyebrow. “Over there in the Church garden? Given the luck we’ve had with bunkin’ down in Churches so far?”

“Statistically makes it less likely to happen twice.” I stated, more the assured for this somewhat mathematical guarantee. “Besides, no self-respecting Slaver would dare sully a house of God.”

She must have thought I’d been making fun at her expense somehow, because the tired lines of her face morphed instantly to those of annoyance and she near impaled herself on the fence post she’d been in the midst of vaulting.

“Hey, if you think it’s a dumb idea, why don’t we just go park our fannies out on the road?” She snapped, irritation worsening noticeably as her baggy pant leg hooked on the posts jagged peak. She bounced about on one foot, thrashing the trapped limb from side to side with the conviction of a wild mongrel snapping the neck of his Radrabbit dinner. “I mean, you’re the one who freakin’ suggested it, no need to go gettin’ all sarcastic on me-”

“I wasn’t having a go, Munch.” I assuaged, making my way over to the fence and taking hold of her sneakered foot. I lifted it just enough to clear space for my hand and reached in, freeing the trapped loop of denim from where it had gotten hooked. Her leg now liberated it swung down with all the grace of a felled tree and smashed the ground with just as much force. “Come on, now. Don’t go getting all sensitive on me, kid.”

Eve seemed to recognize that she had been brewing a storm in a teacup and sighed; raking her hair back out of her eyes. Flashed me an apologetic look from beneath the overgrown tangles of her bangs.

“Sorry. Just been… a long last couple of weeks.”

I chuckled my agreement, stepping in over a significantly lowered portion of the fence than Eve had chosen to tackle. The less hemming and hawing my outfit required the better.

“We’ve sure had us some times.”

“True dat.” She waited until certain I was well and proper ensconced inside the Churches “boundaries” (such as they were) before turning and stomping her way up the slight incline towards a group of not-quite so stark trees. I followed along in her wake, begrudging once more the choice of her attire that morning. The loose material might have been easier to move in but it wasn’t nearly as much fun to watch from behind. Couldn’t complain about the way she filled out that singlet top, though.

What? I was exhausted not _dead._ Take being six feet under before John Hancock stopped finding something to admire in the female form.

Eve paused by the trunk of an enormous maple, craning back her head and staring up at where some of the scraggly clumps of leaves met in the center. It managed to actually provide some shade and the relief I felt when stepping beneath it was almost as good as a wet cloth being sloughed across my skin. Don’t know how Eve handled it; walking around in this heat without a hat on. Stubborn dame. Not like her hair could get any messier than it already was.

“Is here okay?” She asked, which must have been a question of the rhetoric surely. There was little in the way of suitable competition after all.

Regardless, I took a moment to swing a one-eighty on our surroundings. The Church was a near wreck; the structural equivalent of a seventy-year-old drifter with treatment resistant scabies and a calcified liver. It didn’t loom so much as lilt; the weight from its damaged roof sinking into the crumbling bricks on its left facing wall. The upper most rooms were grubby stained glass and those that were smashed showed little to no evidence of being used for sniping purposes.

“Looks good to me.” I said, checking in the other direction and taking note of some dark clouds gathering on the horizon. “Got a good vantage from here.”

“Perfect.” Eve said, shrugging her pack off of her shoulders in one fluid motion before collapsing heavily alongside it. The affixed rifle, hickory swatter and crowbar clattered noisily as they made contact with the ground but she paid them little mind; all efforts divested in unbuckling her holster from around her hips. “God… I am _wrecked._ ”

I took a moment longer to carefully extract my arms from the straps of my duffle, not wanting to risk setting off the side-by-side. I slumped down to rest my back against the tree, bringing the bag close to my hip and reaching into my pocket for the crumpled pack of cigarettes I kept there.

“I hear ya.” I said, reaching over to slap the palm of my hand to Eve’s calf a few times. “Don’t ya worry. Have you back at Spectacle Island before you know it.”

“Wonder if all the others have made it back, yet…?” She mused, staring off towards the church with eyes that were almost entirely feathered shut. She yawned, dabbing at her bottom lip with her fingertips. “That was a lot of clean up after the Rolling Ranch…”

“I reckon a few of them have made their way over there.” Though it wasn’t likely to help, I passed Eve a cigarette and leaned it to strike my lighter to the tip. She drew on it, exhumed the smoke in a heavy sounding breath. Her eyes fluttered in their desperate bid to fight off the heaviness weighing down on them. “Try not to stress on it, darlin’. You’ll see ‘em again soon.”

She flashed me a tired smile, pulling again on the cigarette as I lit my own and dragged back the fumes. “Crazy how much I miss ‘those guys…”

I brought my lips into a tight purse, blew out a concentrated plume of smoke and winked. Meaning to tease her.

“Really that terrible to be stuck out here in the big wide wilderness with me?”

She tittered softly, tapping some ash off to the side and bringing her legs up underneath herself to cross into something of a messy lotus position.

“Nah… gal’s gotta have her eye candy after all.”

We shared a laugh at this, puffing our cigarettes down to exsanguination point before flicking the nubs aside. I gestured towards the church as Eve yanked her upended duffle towards herself and started digging about in the neck of it.

“Somethin’ extra special creepy about this Church… did they always look so… gothic back in the day?”

Eve glanced over at the building, her lip quirking up in the corner that way it always did when she thought someone was being silly.

“That’s because it’s not a church, dear. It’s the Museum of Witchcraft.” She said, tugging a blue cooler out from the depths of her bag and a cloth bag; knotted neatly at the neck. “Little touristy place. Came here once with Nate back in the day. Pretty neat.”

“Sounds about right. You love all that spooky stuff.” I took my hat down off of my head, used it to fan through the part of my shirt and onto my chest. Watched Eve snap open the cooler and ‘um’ and ‘ah’ over the contents. “What we got?”

“Some cold meat. And a couple of bread rolls that aren’t too stale.” She gave a poke to the cloth bag as though verification as to the rolls whereabouts was necessary.

“And here I had my heart set on a ploughman’s lunch.” I tucked my leg in, grinning as Eve took a light-hearted smack at my calf. “Anything to throw on them?”

She rolled her eyes, working on the tight little knot she’d made to keep the cloth bag shut. “What? Precious Mayor Hancock can’t stomach a mouthful of dry bun?”

I gave her a meaningful, and likely suggestive look (flavored with a modicum of invitation). “Wouldn’t be the first dry bun I’d ever had in my mouth.”

Eve looked as though she wasn’t quite sure how to take this; giving a strangled sort of hiccup as she loosed at long last the persistent little knot in the bag. She fetched a couple of rolls out, using her fingers to tear them open. Such class.

“Think I have a bit of chutney buried in here somewhere.” She stared portentously, from beneath the bow of her brows. “Will that suit his majesty more?”

“Very much so, thankyou.” I replied, lathering on a posh accent as Eve started ham-fistedly preparing our rather modest lunch. I took charge of the liquidation situation, bringing a bottle of wine and a Nuka-Cola up out of the depths of my own bag. I spirited out a novelty mug we had come across in our most recent scavenging session; some gray and pink cartoony elephant, whose trunk served as the handle and poured a helping of wine into it. Eve, being a practiced old juicer, naturally took stock of this. Her eyes narrowed a little when they glanced upon the bottle of Nuka-cola, however.

“Are you not gonna have one?”

Jesus… sometimes I think this woman fancied herself in a tropical retreat, rather than a malevolent beastie riddled Wasteland. I reminded myself that she was likely overtired and not thinking straight; hence the reason she lacked more common sense than usual. (Not that there was much to begin with, mind).

“It’s okay. I’ll keep what wits I have about me.” I said, picking up the mug and placing it carefully on the ground by Eve’s knee. From the look on her face, I could tell right away that she realized how stupid her earlier question had sounded. “You go on with your bad self.”

“Doesn’t seem fair…” She remarked, nonetheless picking up the cup and slurping back about a quart of the contents. She may have been a selfless person in some ways but cared little for inhibiting her impulses when it came to the drink. Thank God no one had made her decide yet between any of her friends and that next glass of Zinfandel.

“Don’t stress on it. You’re tired. _Over_ tired, if that unicorn roleplay was anything to judge by.” She chuckled, acknowledging my sage observation on this and took another small sip from her mug before returning her attention to the stacking of the rolls. “Let’s just hang here for a bit. I don’t know about you, but it’s a welcome change just to stretch these sore old feet of mine out.”

Eve smiled, eyes softening as she passed over the first successfully compiled roll; a comparatively modest effort composed of cold cuts of steak, blood leaf and trail made chutney.

“Thankyou.”

“Thank _you._ ” I said, taking the roll from her hand and fairly much sinking my teeth directly into it. I hadn’t realized how hungry I was until the food had been dangled under my nasal cavity. Breakfast seemed like days ago, though I knew it had only been a few hours since we’d gobbled down our Mirelurk egg and baked beans.

The roll was good and the chutney had that signature bite to it that most of Eve’s sauces and the like contained. Her tendency to dribble Radscorpion venom through most everything was fast becoming a staple of hers. We ate in relative silence; me washing down each mouthful with a gulp of warm Nuka-Cola, whilst Eve alternated between distracted nibbles and far too committed gulps of wine. It was only a modest serving but she was so tired I think that, coupled with the unremittingly warm weather, she quickly got herself good and dozy and sat there, blinking torpidly and dusting imaginary crumbs from her thighs.

I popped in the remainder of my second roll (little wonder as to how I managed to put on all that weight during our travels) and turned my attention once more to the sky. I’d noticed a shifting in the air; a sliver of coolness to the otherwise dank humidity. Sure enough, those dark clouds had meandered closer still and they looked good and fat and ready to drop their cumulous load on us.

“Looks like this weather’s about to break.”

It took a moment for Eve to bring herself back to the brink of reality and she swivelled slowly, glancing up at the cloud front and offering it a slightly interested sniff.

“Just like a few weeks back. That Radstorm, remember?”

I nodded, fetching my hat back onto my head and leaning my weight fully against the trunk of the tree. Got a little of that cool breeze in my face for my efforts and savoured it. “Wonder if the heat’ll stick around once we’ve had a bit of rain? Least it’ll cool things off for a while.” I glanced at Eve, saw her just about nose diving into her duffle as she struggled to pack the cooler and its varying accompaniments away. Christ, she was in a way. “You strugglin’, Munch?”

It’s always the way, ain’t it? Feel like you’re doing so well and then someone has to go and ask “ _how you doing._ ” Straw enough to break a Brahmin’s back, those ever so laden words. And sure enough, Eve slumped as if the very strength had just up and melted clear from her muscles.

“I’m just… I’m _tired_ , Hancock. I’m kinda… more than tired.” She gave a soft sigh, relenting in what little pretence she’d maintained and looked over towards me. Her eyes were now little more than heavily hooded slits and she rubbed her knuckle into the corner of each; trying to work some life back into them. “Sorry. I know you are too.”

“It’s okay, Munch.” I said, amused that like usual she struggled with the very idea of quintessentially hogging attention. “You’re _allowed_ , to be tired.”

She tied the top of her duffle, leaning over now to press her palms to the ground. Crawled on her hands and knees towards me, pitching over with a dramatic little groan and all but driving her shoulder through the trunk of the tree. She stared up at me from between the tangled mess of her bangs; fingers picking at errant strands of jutting bark.

“Hey… do you mind if I just… took a little nap? Just for a bit?”

Ah, well it explained the nervous fidgeting, that’s for sure. Because what Eve meant was, ‘I need a nap but I also want a cuddle’. I had gotten much better at interpreting her moods during our travels and the more tired that Eve was, the more needy and emotional she became. Not that I could say I minded, it was just amusing to see her still struggling to come right on out and say what it is that she wanted. Though I guess… I shouldn’t be one to talk.

I gave her a smile, hoping to ease whatever unnecessary embarrassment she was feeling and lifted my arm; allowing her to slide on in under it. She tucked herself in without a moments’ hesitation, pressing her cheek to the side of my chest. Ah yes, foundation and blush all over my shirt again. Guess I wasn’t the one washing it, though.

“You nap as long as you need, Munch. Ain’t got no pressing appointments.” I thought on it a moment, gesturing with a finger towards my duffle. “I can set up the tent you want… get your bedroll and some pillows out?”

Eyes already shut, her head gently rotated against my chest. “No. No, that’s okay. I’m so knackered, I’m ready to fall asleep right here and now.”

Folks say that in your twenties, sleep is for the weak. You huff and you puff and you pinch all the Chems it’ll take to keep your wheels turning until the dawn breaks. All for want of not missing out on something, for the ‘good times’ you’re going to have, etc, etc. And when you’re young; it’s true. You’re fit and you’re pliable and you can fuck like a stallion and get on up the next morning with only two hours sleep and crack on with it.

I did better than most with stringing the fantasy along for as long as possible. Into my thirties I was still razing the bars, hopping up on what was on offer and sleeping with most anything that crossed my path. When I look back now I think to myself, ‘ _Good God… how exhausting’_. Chems became a thing to help me relax, rather than something to keep the party going. And sex, well; the allure for that one has never faded but I doubt such a thing would be possible even were I six feet under and dead for five months.

And irrespective of the fact that I felt such passion for Eve that I could have gotten it up with only a five second window, some of the most wonderful moments I ever shared with her was our simply… napping together. Especially enjoyable when we had been travelling with the others, in that we could set up camp in the afternoon and then curl up on our bedrolls and drop off to sleep whilst the sun was still flirting with the nape of the nearby hill. And to fall asleep, so completely and wake to dozy, contented conversation… it made me feel bonded to her in a way I could never have achieved through sex alone. To sleep with someone and not actually _sleep_ with them. I hadn’t ever shared such a thing with a woman before. And to transcend beyond that point in which you felt the ever-present reminder of sex and to share moments so blissfully contented.

Eve may very well have been on the cusp of turning thirty, but she wasn’t very much like me at that age at all. She didn’t care about partying all night long and carving the notches on her belt. She didn’t care if people thought she went to bed too early, or didn’t dance and snort and huff hard enough or long enough. Where I had been like fiercely burning flame, she had been like the cliff face; as concrete and secure in her construct as she had ever been and all the more resilient in the face of adversary. Whereas I was now in the stage of my life where the flame had ebbed to dimly burning coals, she was, and I imagine should always remain, as steadfast and stable in her convictions as ever. I felt so very peaceful with her. And couldn’t imagine why I had ever been concerned with such things as impressing the likes of people whose names I couldn’t even now recall.

So, when she came to rest against me, I felt that tug against my soul such as a lightly embedded hook feeling upon it the slightest provocation at the fisherman’s hands. I was so blithesomely tired that when she sank down, I felt a weakness flow through me that had nothing to do with desire. Not sexual desire anyway. I wanted to curl up with her, go deeply to sleep and not concern ourselves with all the petty, predatory, nastiness of the world. For perhaps not the first time, I longed for the world from which she came. People in her time probably came to this self-same tree, picnicked against it and dozed off in one another’s arms. No one would have had to have worried about being sniped, robbed, kidnapped, nibbled on by a Mole Rat or splooged on by a Bloatfly.

I put my arms around her, hoping to in some way impart a tiny piece of that time from which she came and unclipped the Pipboy from about her wrist. I placed it down next to my hip, adjusted my legs so that they were spaced apart enough for her to wriggle her way between. She moved on in there without any further prompting and murmured softly for the fact that she was more comfortable, I presume.  

“I’ll keep an eye out.” I whispered down into the crown of her head and she murmured back a soft ‘Thankyou’ before falling shortly to silence once more. To my astonishment, no less than a minute later, she was snoring. God damn, she really _must_ have been exhausted. This was a gal who usually had such trouble sleeping she needed a near full bottle of wine and a half tablet of Day Tripper just to knock her out.

To bide the time, I used Eve’s Pip-Boy to tune in to Diamond City radio and eased the volume down to the lowest possible interpretable timbre. Travis was updating the general populace on the continuing fallout following the Rolling Ranch. I naturally listened with interest.

By now, the majority of captured individuals within the Ranch had been reunited with friends and family; some of whom had travelled over halfway across the country to be with their loved ones. Radio transmissions had been coming in from places further afield too; locales I had never even heard of before. Way up to the far North and the deep South, respectively. The Rolling Ranch had carved its path across any number of coastlines in its villainous quest to acquire, sap and ruin. As proficient in their procurement of flesh as Caesar’s Legion had been in land. Less prolific, mind; but no less the barbaric for how they enacted their regime. Thank God they’d been stopped when they had.

But still, how long, I wondered. Just how long had these pro-autonomy assholes been plying their callous trade? They’d been adrift since the time of the Great War, after all. That’s a lot of time to be doing a whole heck of a lot of messed up stuff. Never mind to what lengths they went to continue refuelling their never ceasing voyage of the damned…

Travis continued on in form for some time; listing and then relisting names. Getting the word out to as many affiliated stations as possible, with the same message to transmit it forward far and wide. It appalled me still, to hear just how many names he had to go through; heartbreaking the more to know that these were people still who hadn’t anyone to return to yet. Transient souls. Free, yes. But to what end? What sort of life could one expect to live with that amount of trauma weighing you down and no one on side to lighten the load?

The air was so muggy and the systematic lolling rise and fall of Travis’s words had a sort of hypnotic effect on me; such that I found myself feeling groggy and light headed before too long. I fought the urge; seductive as it was and reached carefully up with one hand to rub at my eyes, trying to keep myself awake. Nevertheless, my head dropped and bobbed on my neck a few times as sleep got a couple of little hangnails into me.

I wriggled about on my ass, dug a fingernail into the back of my hand to try and keep myself awake. Considered that I might as well just go ahead and surrender and move the both of us on undercover, when Eve started twitching and frowning against my chest. Her fingers flicked and trembled against my chest, her lips wobbling slightly. Her brows ground in, pillowing the soft knoll of flesh above her nose.

Suddenly, she was whimpering, her movements more frantic, more controlled. Sleep paralysis perhaps wearing off. She murmured a few more soft denials, her right arm jerking down so far as the elbow. And then, just like that, she was up and screaming; jerking almost completely away from me and rolling down onto the ground, clutching her hands up underneath her. The sound was so sudden and drastic that it shocked the last remainder of drowsiness from me and I snapped up from the tree, grabbing her about the shoulders and attempting to bring her back towards me.

“Eve! _Eve!_ Calm down, everything’s all right!” I was yelling because she was screaming still and didn’t seem in any state yet to stop. What I could see of her eyes were wild and disorderly; like a terrified animal you’d got backed into a corner with every intention to help but with no means to assure the terrified beast of such a thing.

“My fingers! _My FINGERS!!_ ” She cried out, putting one hand out in front of herself and staring at the still somewhat crooked and swollen digits adorning it. A strangled, helpless sounding whine came from her and it seemed as though the strength in her muscles left along with it. She collapsed into me; still holding her hands in tight against her chest, letting me put my arms in good and firm around her. “He had the… the _hammer,_ John!! He was smashing them with the hammer again!! He was _smashing them and smashing them and smashing them and he wouldn’t STOP!! He wouldn’t STOP – it hurt so_ bad, _John – it hurt so fucking bad!!_ ”

The nightmare again. The one she couldn’t seem to avoid unless she was chocked up on liquor and Daytrippers. A fair place of fear to come from; given she was only one month removed from the memory that had been the seed for this particular nocturnal screening.

I took to rubbing her shoulders; put her hand between my own and then massaged her fingers. Teased each of them out one at a time to show that in spite of the terrible act inflicted upon them, that they were still here. Still functional, thanks to the quick work of the Super Stimpk’s that had been pumped into her hands both before and then directly following rescue. Did little for the memory, though. No Stimpak that could fix something like that.

“You’re okay, darlin’. _They’re_ okay. See?” I lifted her hand, held her fingers up before her eyes for her inspection. Kissed the backs of them. “Shoulda just done let the bastard pull a tooth outta my head. Would’ve been faster.”

“Oh yeah… what kinda person would I be then?” She hiccoughed; the fingers of her left hand curled up and kneading the base of her shirt. As though to protect them from being wrenched out, spread apart and… “What kind of person sells out her friends like that? Rather than… copping the blow themselves?” She sniffed, used her wrist to wipe up underneath her welling eyes. Coursed hair back off of her forehead and stared, unheeding into a perspective beyond my field of comprehension. “I couldn’t live with myself… not if I did _that…_ ”

“I know.” I said, able to understand her mindset on the matter entirely. Above all else, I wish that I’d been able to spare her the suffering she’d endured but loved her more the fiercely for being the sort of person that would sooner put her hand on the chopping boards than offer up a friend. I can’t imagine there was pain on earth that could compel her to compromise her morals; be it through sheer bullheadedness or genuine bravery or a combination of both. Whatever it was; it was admirable. Heartbreakingly admirable. “You’re a gutsy old dame, I’ll give you that. But…” I rested the backs of her fingers to my cheek; paused there a moment to gather my thoughts. Felt her eyes shift over to take me in; questioning. “I just… I don’t want you ever going through anything like that ever again, Munch. Let me take one on the chin for ya next time, a’right? Hurts more seein’ you suffer than it does having the pain dealt direct to me.”

She gave me a tired smile; the sort I didn’t like because it was avoidant and reached up to press a kiss to my cheek. Gratitude for my offer but ever more likely to dismiss it come whatever hostage/abduction situation we were to find ourselves in. Stubborn gash she was.

“You know…” She said, twisting her head to stare down along the line of beige hewn grass beneath us. Pressing plush lips together to form a barely discernible strike along the line of her face before allowing them to flex and plump back out again. Terrible, to find something so desirable in such a moment and yet irrepressible just the same. “It’s… stupid, I know but… all I kept thinking at that time was…” And here, her eyes welled so thickly with tears that they momentarily bulged and swam and then deposited thick, unapologetic drops down to pepper the denim of her jeans. Her front teeth pinned to her bottom lip and she was sobbing, pressing her fingers over her chin as though attempting to veil her loss of control from me. I caressed her forehead, her temples; eased her hair up and away from her face again. Rubbed circles into her upper back. Made no attempt to clean the tears up, remand her grief or inhibit in any way this painful, delimited need to detoxify her mind and soul.

“I just…kept thinking…” She looked up, mouth pulled down at the corners into a miserable drawl that all too quickly pared from her teeth. That face of pure, unbridled emotion. “I just… I just wanted my _Mom_ …” Again, she dropped her head; stared down towards the ground. Her shoulders bucked a few times. “I was so scared and the pain was so bad, I… I remember I was… in my head I was saying; ‘Mommy, Daddy _help me…’_ I just wanted them _there_ with me. Goddamn, I miss them so much…”

I pulled her to me again; nursed her in my arms and pushed a kiss to her forehead. It was all filler for the surprising fact that for once… I didn’t know what to say. I couldn’t begin to empathize properly with the situation that she was in. _No one_ could. Sure, we had all lost loved ones along the way but Eve had lost so much in that one great flash of light alone. The magnitude of her loss was beyond measure. And who among us couldn’t understand that inert biological need to beseech comfort from your caregiver? Provided you were fortunate enough to have landed some semblance of one. I too had called out in my mind for my father the night the Wrangler’s had their way with me in the Statehouse Holding Cell. The fact that he was dead and gone changed nothing. Ain’t nothing that changes the _want._

“I know you do, honey. And I’m sorry you gotta be going through any of this. Ain’t no one who deserves it less than you.” I rocked her a bit, for it seemed the most soothing mechanism I had on offer and leant my cheek to the curve of her head. Sighed deep, for I had never felt less of use to someone. “I wish I could fix it all, I really do. Wish I could wave a magic wand and bring ‘em all back.”

“I know… I know that’s not reality.” Eve murmured, sitting up on her hip as best she was able and going to a sudden and in my mind, rather perplexing effort of drying herself off. She looked almost… ashamed. “I’m sorry. I need to harden up, I know… I know…”

I reached over, put my palm to the back of her neck. Encouraged her swollen, red veined and dew dropped speckled gaze back towards me. Gave her what I hope was a warm, yet firm look in return.

“Eve? I am _not_ suggesting, subtly or otherwise that you need to ‘harden up’. Everyone’s got a right to mourn their own tragedies.” I rubbed a thumb to the curve of her neck; noticed, with a slight smile that she hadn’t blended some of her makeup very well towards the peak of her throat. A line of brown created a wave there against the lines of her flesh. I did what I could to smooth it out. “And what you’ve been through… I can’t imagine anyone handling it with more class than you. Picking yourself up is all well and good but ya gotta give yourself permission to let it out sometimes. Ya gotta grieve, Munch. And ya can’t be worryin’ every two seconds about what people think. Ain’t like you’re running around beggin’ for attention from every Tom, Dick and Harry.” I clucked my thumb to her chin, gave her a big old smile. “Honestly? In this great wide storm fucked ocean of the Commonwealth, you’ve made as little waves as a pebble being dropped over the side of the dock. Ya feel me?”

I guess they must have been the words she’d needed to hear, because she looked truly relieved and grateful for my having offered them. She nodded in my hold, took my wrist in the palm of her hand and gave it a squeeze. God damn… those eyes of hers were even more startling when she’d been crying. The sheen of the tears made the green in them seem to glow. There was a sparkle, even amidst the swollen hillocks surmounting them and the dribbling, matted blots of mascara and eyeliner. Even with all this hot mess as a detractor, I was finding it nearly impossible to look away.

“Thanks, John.” She said and in a tone so uncharacteristically shy that I could have gone and just fallen on her then and there. What is it about a woman that when she goes and gets all vulnerable that a man feels both an overwhelming urge to both protect and procreate with her in the same breath? Once upon a time it might have been the idea that when a woman let her defences down that it would be easier to get on in there but I’d never really found a hobbled ‘hunt’ to be in any way appealing. And yet now, in this moment… her softness and temperateness of tone made me feel like… I needed to pick her up, pull her close and rock her gently. Promise that no one would ever hurt her again. Place comforting hands against her body and… rip all her clothes off like a sweet roll wrapper.

I felt a strong need now to draw away from such thoughts, lest it make it all the more difficult to contain what I felt weren’t exactly the subtlest of desires. The sun glancing out from behind a cloud served as some minor saviour in this regard; bearing heavy on my eyes and reminding me once more of just how tired I was.

“Heya… Munch…?”

She tilted her head some; that forty-five-degree angle most universally employed by a dog when it wasn’t quite certain what was on offer. “Mrmm?”

“I’m… sorry to be an asshole, kid but I’m… I’m strugglin’ to keep my eyes open.” I leant my cheek to the top of her head; sighing heavily. Detected nothing of that fruity sweetness in her hair which I’d so readily come to associate with her. Too many days with only tinned purified water and a washcloth to tidy ourselves up. “Reckon we could… maybe find somewhere inside we can hunker down? Throw some shit against the door and just…”

Eve gave yet another soft, deep murmur; pressing herself down fully into my embrace. I felt her cheek through the wall of my shirt, her arm wind about my waist. Her knee rotated just enough to press to the leg of my pants and I wished, yet again, that the world was a much different place. To stay as such; curled and comfortable under this tree. That cool breeze wending its tiny fingers about us; the warmth of the sun coaxing us ineffably down into sleep time and time again… I’d never been what you might call a ‘dreamer’ but I found myself too often these days drawn towards the ‘what if’s’ and the ‘if only’s.’ Didn’t fix nothin’ but… desire ain’t much about the cold reality.

After a moment longer spent in this dozy contentment, Eve hefted a painful sounding groan; turning her lips enough to press lightly to my cheek. I wasn’t yet accustomed to these displays of affection from her and I felt the sharp edges of my inner self melt that tiny bit more.

“I hear ya, darl. It’s okay.” She peeled from me, leaving behind a damp shirt, clinging to my chest and stomach in shameless patches. With a grunt, she was on her feet with all the grace and dexterity of a newborn calf; staggering over towards her bag and lugging it up onto one shoulder. Her bleary eyes peered out towards the… Museum of Witchcraft. “This Museum should have… some good little hidey nooks and what not. Storage room, broom closet… Reckon we can fortify long enough to get us a good sleep. Least set it up that we’d get… you know… woken up if anyone came a pokin’ and proddin’…”

“Sounds good.” I mumbled, staggering just as inelegantly onto my feet and reefing my own bag onto my back. I assisted Eve first with snapping on her Pipboy and then hooking up her straggling guns and melee weapons. Routinely adjusting the straps on her pack so that it pulled taut and firm to the line of her back. I felt awful for not being able to tough through it a bit longer, but the exhaustion weighed as heavy on me as a building bears down upon its foundations. More the risk if I were to up and fall asleep out here; leaving us both vulnerable. Didn’t make me feel like less of an ass though. “I’m… sorry, darlin’…”

She gave me again that tired and tirelessly patient smile. “It’s okay.”

“Just…worried I was gonna go and nod off here and…”

“It’s _okay._ You’re just as tired as I am, John.” She smiled again as we carved our lethargic path towards the museum; flashing what little of her teeth she had energy enough to display. “Honestly? Nothing sexier I can think of right now than getting down and dirty with a good old afternoon nap.”

I offered a chuckle of mirth towards the Heaven’s; painfully aware of the irony that had become my existence. “Oh, man… sign of the times. Here I am, wendin’ my wicked way about the Commonwealth with a beautiful dame like you and all I’m thinkin’ about is curlin’ up for a good old-fashioned kip…”

She gave what I took to be a supportive bump of the shoulder against my own. “We ain’t teenagers, hun. Got no obligation to pretend to anyone that we ain’t nothin’ but pathetic old dribblin’ geriatrics with nothin’ more exciting in mind than a good pureed meal with next to no chewing involved and pull up incontinent panties.”

“Kind of liberatin’, really.”

She tittered softly, pulling out in front of me and turning on the spot. Spreading both hands out in front of her body as though inviting me in.

“What you want?” She asked, walking backward and sort of swaying her hips as she went. A tired, energy-less dance. “Be the big spoon, or the little spoon?”

I scoffed; energy enough to keep my smile pinned up into my cheeks but precious little aside. Even with the inviting little hike and fall of her hips, I struggled to think of anything I would like more than to be curled up safe in a barricaded room and snoring for broke.

“I’ll be lucky I get any further than just fallin’ on my back like a skanky old starfish.” I said, reaching out to give her a teasing little… push, I guess. Just to tease her, mind. She took my hand up out of the air; turned to fall flush with my side and dropped her fingers down between my own. Entwined them; such as we had started doing of a night time whilst sharing our dinner. As her grip to me tightened, I too returned that comforting pressure and we looked to one another like a pair of insecure teenagers. Gauging one another’s reactions, I think. Pleased to find that we felt as much at risk of hurt as the other and this physical concession on her part buoyed me such as nothing had before. I gripped to her hand tighter. We kept our pace. Funny… I remembered holding hands with would be girlfriends back in my teens and my twenties but as I’d gotten older it seemed… well, I hadn’t had girlfriends really, had I? I’d had… partners. People I slept with. Not… a companion. I guess that was what defined my relationship with Eve. As a man in my forties, I’d never seriously considered holding someone’s hand before now. But with her the connection felt… natural.

Damn… A woman I’d never fucked. Never even _kissed_ , mind you. And here I was, holding her hand like I was fourteen and thinking this was what needed doing if I had a hope in hell of getting lucky. Well… maybe that was a mindset that never really changed.

Saliva had gathered heavy in my mouth and I gulped it back; a move that seemed far too much a stereotype of the ‘nervous guy’ shtick. I weighed my next words carefully; wondering all the while if I was about to spectacularly wedge my foot in it. It was a risk, yeah. But I liked being honest with her.

“It um… could be like this, you know?” I said, my eyes pinned to hers as she turned and raised her brows lightly. Querying. “All the time. Going from place to place, livin’ by the moment. It’s… exhaustin’ sometimes, I know-”

“And scary.” She added, with a weary chuckle.

“And scary, yeah? But… isn’t it fun?” I grinned at her, feeling a small spike of adrenaline zip through my nerve endings. So much as broaching what I felt for her had me teetering on the metaphorical edge. “And… exciting and… passionate?”

She snorted, giving me a long, amused look. “Listen to you. When have _you_ ever used the word _passionate?_ Who just drops that in conversation?”

“I _think_ it. Just because I talk cheap sometimes, doesn’t mean I _think_ cheap, Eve.” The use of her name must have reinforced the fact that I was attempting to be serious with her and she eased off on her teasing; smile slipping down to form a straight, gentle line. “Humor me?”

She thought about this a moment and then smiled, giving a slight nod as we stepped on over a jutting and densely crowded branch.

“Play pretend. Just for a minute. It’s just… you and me. None of the rest of it. Just us. Here. Travelin’ together.”

Eve’s eyes seemed to sparkle and her smile morphed into something sly looking. “What brought us here, if not for the things that no longer exist?”

It was a clever observation and one I had to think on a minute, returning her own smug grin with interest once I’d muddled it over some in my head.

“You walked into town. You’re… heading someplace. I don’t know. But I… I wanted to do what I always wanted to do. Keep the earth from burning the soles of my feet. So, we startin’ rambling together. Makin’ our way, further and further out.” I paused for a moment; bit my lip at the unfamiliar emotion of vulnerability running through me. Added: “Would you… wanna keep goin’?”

She paused as well, coming to a halt with her hand still clasped to my own. Glancing about as though seeking out unseen observers before then twisting about to focus on me again.

“As far as where?”

My eyes felt strained. How long had it been since I had blinked? Since I’d moved my line of sight away from her?

“As far as… anywhere.”

She watched me a moment longer; as though attempting to sift through the myriad thoughts strobing inside of my skull with the piercing spurs of her gaze alone. Wondering, I could only suppose, just what point it was that I was ever so clumsily wending my way towards. Either she decided that she hadn’t a chance in hell of deciphering what my intentions were, or considered the effort too taxing and acquiesced with what I took to be a slightly sad, yet accommodating smile. An expression I couldn’t pretend I was pleased with; given that it made me feel small and somehow pitied.    

“You see… that’s where we’re a little different, John.” She said, swaying our joined hands out in the space between us before then placing her remaining palm about our own. I tried to pretend as though this act didn’t hurt as well. Like she was letting me down easy. “You and I. You stay in one place, one situation too long and you feel the ‘earth burning the soles of your feet’. I stay in one place and I feel the earth… kinda cradle me, I guess.” She laughed, mocking her own somewhat poetic turn of phrase. Eve was never one to take herself seriously; never the more noticeable for when she was trying to be serious. “I _love_ the outdoors, yeah but I never wanted to make the great wide unknown my _home_. I need a place to go back to. I need security and safety. Scatter cushions and toilet paper and somewhere to keep the wine cool.” She sighed, releasing her hold about me so as to brush a stem of hair back from her face. One that I couldn’t see had been in any way inhibiting her sight. “It’s why I’ve never felt entirely at peace since I woke up over a year ago. I don’t have anywhere I can go where I can just… switch off from the world and… rest.”

“You have me.” I said and with such abruptness that it took us the both by surprise, I think. It was how I felt, sure but I wondered, as I had so often wondered in those days, whether it was just that little too much. Because how much would have felt like a burden to this woman? This woman who only barely balanced her sanity by carefully stacking up the metaphorical weights that she placed upon the scales of her mind.

I thought it might be enough to tilt the balance; to at least force the conversation I think she and I had been avoiding far too long by that stage. But such was Eve’s classic ability to both hint to and then dodge the matter entirely, that she took to me with a look that streamed instead from her deep-seated insecurity. Still rooted to the core of her being, in spite of such flagrant evidence to the contrary.

“And how long until you leave me too?” She murmured. A question that might have both hurt and offended me, if I wasn’t all too aware of the place from which such thoughts ensued.

 Eve was a person nigh void of vanity; who used humor and evasion and masks both physical and metaphorical to protect herself. To give the impression that she was far more strong and capable and bulletproof than she actually was. I’d travelled at her side long enough to recognize these strategies. In turn, she knew enough of my character to understand that… yes; I lacked attention at times. I grew bored with things. I craved excitement and stimulation, just so surely as she craved the peace and the quiet. She knew that I’d had women; more than I’d cared to count and broken more hearts than I cared to know. As a practical woman, she would be weighing such factors up in her mind and asking: _What makes me different?_ _I can’t be more beautiful, more engaging, more intelligent than_ all _of those women. Surely some of them were extraordinary. Why then, would he be content at my side (especially in lieu of physical reciprocation of the kind you just_ know _John Hancock enjoys) when all these others have come and gone before me?_

I could pick the words just as clearly as if she had whispered them into my ear. Perhaps she had, I don’t know. She’s certainly said such things since. But there have been many a night where we were both too exhausted, too hammered, too hopped up on the chemical good times to remember much of anything; let alone what conversations might have been slurred on out in the grip of near-unconsciousness.

And yet, in spite of my understanding on the matter, it still stung. I hadn’t an answer as to why she was here when others hadn’t ‘made the cut’. She just… was. There was a… something about her, that wasn’t extraordinary, yet was exemplary. I wished for perhaps the thousandth time that she could see it. This… whatever it was.

I knew the hurt was resonating in the lines about my eyes; the way it always did with us Ghouls. I didn’t try to hide it, such as I might have done if I’d been strutting the streets of Goodneighbor and instead let her see that she had moved me. I squeezed her hand, met her gaze and felt ever more the intrinsic need to convince her of the worth she ever so stubbornly refused to acknowledge.

“I am _not_ about to cut and run on you.” I said, thinking to myself of that burn she seemed to feel I needed to run from and knowing more by the minute that hers was the only fire I wished to be consumed by.  

She dropped her gaze; perhaps because mine was so intense? I don’t know. But she smiled still; looking for the world as though she were ashamed of herself.

“Sorry… that sounded meaner than what I meant.” She lifted her chin and gave another comforting squeeze to my fingers. We’d stopped walking at some point; and stood less than fifty feet from the nearest wall of the Museum. I could feel the dampness in the air, which meant the storm was fast approaching. “I know you’re not the type of person that ever sets out to be cruel to someone. You’re a… free spirit. Tethering someone like you down just… smothers the fire inside of them.”

“That’s bullshit.” I snapped and wholly meant it. “All this stuff about our signs and our natures and our freakin’ affiliation with the elements is just a… convenient means to draw conclusions that make some sorta stupid universal sense.” I took her loose hand up now in my own, held them both and rubbed my thumbs across the branching vein lines that traversed down towards each of her sore, swollen fingers. “Eve… I dunno what’s gonna happen next. Not in the next day, the next week, _fuck,_ the next _year._ But I do know that I’m grateful. Right now, right here for everythin’ I’ve gotten to share with you and the others.”

“Some pretty horrible things to be grateful for.” She said with a mirthful chuckle. One I couldn’t help but join her in.

“Plenty of horrible things in this world to be gettin’ on with, Munch. Not many you get to share with someone you… care about as much as I care about you.”

Now she definitely looked overwhelmed and she turned away, tucking her lips in to whet them and then flashed me a very vulnerable look which was as adorable as it was infuriating.

“We still, um… playing make pretend?”

I snorted a small laugh, reaching out to pull a few strands of loose hair away from where sweat had pinned them to her cheeks. A gesture which said, though my words couldn’t, that there was nothing pretend in how I felt about her.

“God you’re a stubborn pain in the ass…”

Eve laughed softly; her cheeks pink in those few patches her foundation had rubbed bare. “Sorry, I uh… I’m awkward. In case you hadn’t realized.” She looked down again, biting her lip. As awkward in practice as she was in motion. “You know, uh… It’s sad because… what happened was… it was the worst pain I have ever felt in my entire life. And I popped out an enormous thumper of a baby.” A tear slipped down her cheek and for once, she didn’t go chasing after it on the pretence of being tough and needing to constantly convey it. This to me was especially telling. “Seeing the world destroyed, seeing Nate m-murdered… knowing my father and all my… family and friends were… everything I knew was…”

She paused a moment, sniffed. I took my handkerchief out from my shirt pocket and held it out to her. I’d used it a few times on my face that day and I pointed out the clean segments where she could safely dry her face without coming into contact with my dried up sweat. She did so, using a corner to gingerly dab at the corner of each nostril. Finally, she regained composure enough to continue.

“Whenever I feel… happy in this world, this _time…_ I feel guilty almost immediately after. It’s like I’m… I’m trapped in this place where I can’t just… I can’t be _free,_ I just…”

“Hey. Don’t forget that for you, it’s really only been over a year and a bit.” I said, reaching up and giving her shoulder a squeeze. “Given what you’ve experienced, the very fact that you’re not only up and walking around but kicking serious ass is fuckin’ astronomical.” She managed a small laugh at this, accepting my words and I used the pad of my pinkie finger to gently brush aside a few fresh drops of tears that sputtered down onto her cheeks. “Please don’t feel like you gotta make excuses up for feelin’ what’s normal to be feelin’, Munch.”

“It’s not… making excuses so much as just sharing what’s going on inside of me.” She insisted, though I didn’t in the least buy that she didn’t hold herself to account for processing normal human emotion. Girl had too high standards for her own good. “And…what I want to be saying with all of that is… is that… in spite of all this shit, I’m… grateful too.” She smiled up at me and it made me feel a little weak, because there was something especially shy and vulnerable in how she did it. As though she were on the cusp of showing belly. It made my heart zing with hopeful anticipation. “I feel guilty because… I’m so grateful and so happy to have met someone that I feel… Geez… I’m gonna go and say something stupid now ‘cause I’m all overtired and shit…”

“S’all good, I’m happy to save you the trouble.” I took mercy, because she looked all sorts of embarrassed right about then and rounded it off as best I could. Because it couldn’t tip the scales to be just that _little_ bit of honest, no? “I feel it too. That sorta… sounds stupid…” I added, with a scoff. “Like a… teacup and its saucer, sorta feel.”

She laughed at my foolish analogy and took her own small brand of mercy by acknowledging it with a nod. More than it deserved, mind you. Must have gone and pulled that one right out of my ass. _Teacup and its fucking saucer…_

“It doesn’t sound stupid. Feels like a tiny piece of me that’s been topsy turvy most of my life calmed down when we became friends.” She stopped then, her expression warping completely into one of distraction. Her eyes shifted to the side and her nostrils hiked to form a dark awning as she took a deep breath in. “Um… John? Not to go… ruining the moment or anything but… do you smell something?”

I _had_ in fact been smelling something pretty rancid for the past five or so minutes but I’d put it on the back burner in favor of the conversation we’d been having. After all, the Commonwealth isn’t short on putrid aroma’s; none of which warranted interrupting a heartfelt tête-à-tête just to draw attention to it.

But because I was me and Eve was Eve, I of course had to go and make a joke out of it.

“Oh _that._ Yeah. Thought that was you.” I said, giving her a good old crooked smile as she turned on me with a typically unappreciative frown. “I was gonna say somethin’ but, ya know… been a few days since we showered and all. Didn’t want you feelin’ all insecure about your lax hygiene.”

“Yeah, cause I’m sure _your_ ass smells like a bed of fucking gardenias.” Eve shot back, letting go of my hand in favor of carefully traipsing closer to the Museum. No less than a moment later, she had her palm set to the splintered bark of the spindly tree beside her and was gagging off to the side. “Oh… God… smells so bad. You hear that too?”

It had been a very dull buzzing up until now and I can’t pretend I’d been paying it the slightest attention. Again, having grown up in the Commonwealth, it wasn’t the most uncommon of sounds. That of small flies going to work on a dead body.

Sure enough, no less than ten feet away, I spotted it. Or, what was left of it, rather. The body of a woman; torn into several pieces and strewn liberally about the ground just offside of the Museum’s Eastern wall. I would have liked to have protected Eve from such a sight, but there was little point. Not two seconds later she was squealing; yanking her foot back from where it had connected with the woman’s severed head. The face all but torn from the skull in ragged strips; eyes an eviscerated pulpy mess within their sockets.

Eve put her back to the slaughter; hands pressed over her own face and quietly sobbing. I took her about the shoulder’s; held her to me as I pitched my eyes to every direction they were capable of taking in. We were both thinking the same thing, I know; which was why Eve had taken to crying such as she had. Empathy she had aplenty, but this heightened reaction lent itself to one thing and on thing only.

The thought that Barbados had finally caught up with us.

 

**_Goodneighbor – Current Day…_ **

 

 “…John? … Honey, you’re dribbling on me.”

I jerked awake to the sound of Eve’s voice; feeling the temperate brush of her fingertips along the back of my skull as an almost amusing juxtaposition to the slimy trail if drool forking from the corner of my mouth. I blinked heavy eyes; fought as best I could through the satisfied fog curling about my brain. Focused on the small puddle of drool that had accumulated in the flushed valley of Eve’s shoulder.

“Shit… sorry, love.” I chuckled, using my fingers to wipe the spittle up as best I could. I knew the sheets would have to be washed, so I wiped my fingertips off on the one lying closest us. Used a corner that had pulled loose to dry then the little hallow of Eve’s neck.

Typical… I’d only meant to put my head down a moment while I caught my breath but I’d obviously gone and nodded off. Not all that surprising though, given the energy I’d burned. I hadn’t even bothered to go and roll off of her before passing out. I could feel the heat of her body wrapped about me; the shifting of her internal muscles pressing and rolling like the heel of a firmly massaging hand. I was nestled snug inside of her still and she was warm and slick and far too difficult to shed.

She gave a sleepy smile; eyes half masted from what I could only hope was a combination of weariness and genuinely satisfied passion. She rubbed her hands up over my arms, tenderly caressed the back of my neck as I in turn pressed my temple to the wall of her chest. I didn’t want to move; not for a good long while. And I had genuine doubts as to whether my body was physically capable of disinterring itself (so to speak) anytime soon. Everything that wasn’t warm and tingly and internally purring felt to be either strained or bruised in some manner. It was _awesome_.

“It’s cool.” She gave a soft, affectionate chuckle as her fingers traversed the line of my back; alighting then once more to the crown of my head. I felt her fingertips twine circles against the slope of my scalp and the sensation was ever so relaxing I might have dropped back off to sleep again. “You’re a sleepy Ghoul.”

“I’m a happy Ghoul.” I alliterated, turning my head just enough to press a tired old kiss to the damp indent of Eve’s shoulder. Sloughed my face along the line of her chest before lending my lips to the curve of her right breast. “Can’t believe I went and passed out on top of ya like that. You ok?”

She gave a light, shallow sounding scoff; grazing the side of her index finger along my cheek. “Please. You’re hardly heavy.”

“Was I out long?”

“Fifteen minutes or so. You were snoring.” She smirked, stroking the back of my neck almost distractedly. Seems like I wasn’t the only one content to just veg on out for a while. Though she wore a soft, sweet smile, her eyes looked near too heavy for her sockets and her lashes fluttered with the rapidity otherwise required of a Bloatfly to keep itself airborne. It had after all been a long and trying day for her. And that wasn’t even taking into account the exhausting trek she and the others had taken across the Commonwealth. “And twitching like a dog that was having a dream! It was really cute.”

“Yeah, I’ll bet.” I chuckled, marshalling some tiny reservoir of energy I was surprised I had and pushing up onto my elbows. I lifted my hips, feeling a tremble go through my thighs which took some of the weight from the lower half of my body. That hot, hugging heat lessened about me; inch by inch until the tip of my dick finally slipped free. I honestly felt I preferred for it to remain in captivity, though the time we had remained joined hadn’t done much in the way of favors. Things had gotten… tacky down there and the act of parting caused a small amount of discomfort. Eve made a little noise as I withdrew; as though she were on the receiving end of an unwanted pinch.

“Any longer and we would have been glued together.” I remarked, steering myself over just enough to drop on my hip beside her. Trying to keep my dick resting against my upper thigh, less it sag and make even more of a mess of the bottom sheet. Little point there was in being concerned with such a thing.

Eve gave a nonchalant shrug. “Worse things in life.” She said, twisting herself over so that she too lay perched on her side. She looked wonderful; the already prominent curve of her hip angled toward the ceiling, her waist dipping down dramatically, the inner curves of her breasts pushed plump. Her face too; almost entirely rubbed free of makeup but so rosy and dozy and… precisely how I had imagined her to look in all the myriad times I had fantasized about this moment.

I reached over, peeled damp strands of blonde hair away from her forehead and temple. Caressed the curve of her cheek with the knuckles of the same hand. Looked to the space in which the mounds of her thighs met. The flesh there was exceptionally shiny and it sent a tingling through the chambers of my chest when I thought as to why.

“Hey… sorry I didn’t give you more warning. Before I went and… you know…”

Eve smiled, peering from beneath thick lashes as her fingers caressed the aching ridges of my knuckles. “John, if I had any concerns about it, I wouldn’t have even let you get on in there without a rubber.” She shuffled closer, lifting her cheek just enough for me to slide my arm beneath the line of her neck. Nuzzled then to the patchy knoll of my bicep. “It’s what I wanted too, you know? I wanted us to be together, one hundred and ten percent. Not like with those other broads who made you keep your clothes on and all that shit.”

I felt such a profound sense of gratitude towards her in that moment that it near struck the breath from my body. To draw a comparison between what I had experienced with the women of my past and what I had just shared with Eve seemed an absurd joke. Since going Ghoul, not a single lover, sans she, had touched nor kissed me with such generosity. I suppose the same could be said for the days of my youth in turn; when I knew nothing of the complimentary nature of sex and love. To have felt her skin flush to my own… the gliding plains of her palms as they caressed my back… the soft velvety fen of her inside thighs pressing to either side of my own… I felt connected to her and satisfied in a way I could barely begin to fathom, let alone describe.

I raised my head, wrapped my lips around her own a few slow, tender times. Stroked my thumb to the rise of her cheek and looked her dead square in those beautiful, gold laced eyes. “Thankyou.” I said, which was a statement that said far too little of what I was actually feeling mind, but encompassed the depth of my incomparably profound gratitude, I’m sure.

Eve gave a tinkling laugh, glancing her fingertip along the line of my chin with a tenderness that suggested she might have been caressing a fine glass sculpture instead. “You’re seriously thanking me for sex?”

I scooted to the side of the mattress, rolling over so as to have access to the drawer on the bedside table. Eve’s fingertips lazily grazed across the cheeks of my ass; a poignant near contradiction to the heated gropes of earlier. Wouldn’t be surprised if I found a couple of her fingernails buried in there, hard as she’d been digging at me.

“I think a fella should _always_ be thankful for havin’ sex. It’s when he starts expecting it that you know he doesn’t deserve it no more.” I flashed a smile over my shoulder between fossicks.  “Besides, why shouldn’t I be grateful? You’re the first girl I’ve been with since I became a Ghoul that went and got completely naked with me. With the lights on, no less! Not to mention giving me head. For that alone, I oughta build you a statue.”

“I’d hate to think of what kind of tacky statue that would be…” Eve mused, offering up a somewhat muted chuckle from the corner of her mouth that wasn’t embedded in the wrinkled sheet beneath us. “And besides, don’t make out like you went and got the better end of the deal. In case it wasn’t obvious, I was having fun too.”

Having shoved aside a few indiscernible scraps of paper, tin foil packets of Chems long since chocked and various other assorted knacks and knicks alike, I alit finally upon the half pack of cigarettes I had dropped in there earlier. I plucked its wrinkled carapace out between two fingers (those that had been buried in Eve to the hilt, no less) and flicked back the cap, bringing it to my lips so as to pinch one of the cylinders out between my lips. There was a lighter wedged in there too and I took it, striking the dial and sparking out a short plume of flame.

“Do you smoke after sex, John?” Eve asked farcically, as I lit the tip of the cigarette and took a deep, blissful drag in.

“Only if I do it too fast.” I said, offering up perhaps the laziest, half-assed wink I could manage in my mentally inebriated state. A stupid, stereotype remark and one that I felt was all much in Eve’s ballpark; more the confirmed because it roused a small laugh from her in response.

I passed the cigarette over and she pressed her lips to the filter, drew back and pulled some of the smoke deep into her lungs. Eyes pinned shut, she cocooned it a while longer; the unequivocal epitome of burbling contentment. Turned slightly to exhale that mist like eruption into the air above the bed; a thoughtful smile then permeating her lips and a palm pressing to her forehead. She laughed a little; amused, I gather.

“Man… oh, I could _sleep…_ ” She murmured, twisting her hip over so that her body stretched long and bare along the wrinkled lines of the (mainly) sweat speckled sheet. I pulled back again on the cigarette; resting my cheek on my fist and pinning my elbow hard into the mattress. Looking her over. None the less admiring now than I had been in the minutes before I had sluiced myself across every last inch of her luscious curves. The way her breasts settled to either side of her chest, the line down from her loins… even the shape of her vagina and the way it appeared to now nestle, fey and invariably satisfied between her thighs made me feel closer to her than ever. I wanted to see, to touch and to know every inch of this woman.

And I think… yeah, I think she’d been satisfied. She’d come, that much I knew. Having been a sex worker in the past, I’d learned a few little tricks to be able to tell the difference between a woman faking it and actually getting there. Get your fingers in there at just the right depth and angle and you could _feel_ the contractions of orgasm; the fluctuations and the pulse. Sometimes a woman would naturally flex and tighten up as she experienced pleasure, which was why it was so important to listen to her breathing patterns; because these too tracked the ladder of crescendo.

Every woman came differently too, I’d long ago learned. I knew ahead of time that whichever means Eve enjoyed her climax (granted I was lucky enough to help her get there) would be incredible. And by God, I hadn’t been the least disappointed! The way her muscles had locked, tightened and then trembled; her feet quaking on the bone of her ankle as though likely to break free from the ball joint at any moment. Her face too; mouth gaping yet turning up at the corners to form that smile ever so specifically wed to pleasure. Just a hint of her lower row of lovely straight teeth; fingers flexing, chin sinking down into her neck to form any number of complimentary chins for that one moment of complete unmarshalled, unguarded passion.

Could it have been better? To join so completely with this woman I loved with such intensity. To not only come from that act of being joined but for her to come as well. An ideal I’m sure most media portray as being something of the norm and something in which reality so often falls short. To enjoy great sex. To enjoy the act of being together. Even now, just laying still, feeling the little kicks and ticks of my muscles and the feel-good chemicals rushing through me, I could wend my eyes across her body and feel great pleasure in having access to this unveiled side of her. God, if I could tack a few extra hours onto this night, it still wouldn’t be long enough…

My silence of all things must have drawn her attention and her eyes flickered open, her chin twisting to take me in. She sat up, her body taking on a hint of all different dimensions now and reached across to pluck the cigarette out of my hand. She took a puff; raked noticeably shaky fingers through her hair and then stared at me from beneath the errant strands she had little hope in corralling.

“It scares me a little… ya know.” She said and in such a serious tone that it gave me pause to consider. I sat up straighter; gave her a good serious look to show that she had my attention. “The way you look at me, sometimes. It makes me wonder if I’ll up and fall short. I mean… you’ve had an idea in your head a while now, I suppose. Lot to live up to.”

“And nothin’ you need to go over-fucking-analysing.” I said firmly, taking the cigarette back and breathing in yet another nice, calming drag from the cores burning timbres. She took another for herself and in the wake of her both finishing and then extinguishing it, I rolled back to the side of the bed I’d temporarily claimed as my own. Reached into the pocket of my waistcoat; which I had earlier draped upon the headboard. As Eve nestled the dying butt of the cigarette into the ashtray on her bedside table, I retrieved in turn the fresh handkerchief I’d placed into my pocket and rolled back over. The latent, unneeded insecurity festering in her eyes all but extinguished as I upped to my knees; cupping the palms of my hands beneath her ankles and raising them from the mattress.

“Okay. Upsie daisy.” I instructed, flashing a smile which I felt to further widen as she issued a soft groan and accompanying flush; one which made her seem much younger than her twenty-nine years. She covered her eyes with her fingertips, leaning back against the bed and pulling her legs back; all too aware I think, of what it is that I was about to do.

I used my left arm to push her knees down to her belly, such as I had done earlier in the evening. The view was just as indescribably delicious as earlier but I was still fucking whacked from our earlier session and felt only the slightest pelvic tingling in response. I used the handkerchief to clean her up; because in spite of my having come all right up deep inside of her, she’d taken to leaking now I’d withdrawn and it bothered me to think of her laying there all uncomfortable and sticky.

I wiped around the plush lips of her slit, poking in just enough to sop up any residual muck remaining inside before using a clean corner to wipe down over her perineum and further still into the crack of her ass. The only hair that remained on her puss was that little runway strip down the middle; the undercarriage was remarkably smooth and clean. Much cleaner still than I’d seen most women, thus far. It was always nice to see a lady maintain her pubic region but I was quietly relieved that Eve hadn’t stripped away the entire hedgerow (so to speak). Or, likely, she hadn’t permitted Meaghan to do such a thing. A little hair down there was one of the first things that made me feel as though I was actually seeing a real woman; as opposed to someone in a magazine or, god forbid, someone too young to have actually sprouted a single pube.

Eve had removed just enough so as to make the act of going down on her truly enjoyable. Running my tongue all up over those smooth lips, dips and ridges… getting a real good, uninhibited taste of her. It was perfect for our first time together, nothing surer. But that little strip just right there in the middle; that reminder of the woman that I was with and not the object, was exquisite. A perfect balance.

And in spite of her earlier consternations, she sure as hell had a good-looking puss. I can’t say whether it was a changing of the generations or what, but I could almost swear the shape was subtly different to that which I had seen before. Not to say that there was anything so sublimely perfect about it that it deserved mounting on the Statehouse wall but it had a sort of symmetry I found desirable. In spite of Eve’s suggesting that it resembled nothing less than a dropped beef sandwich.

Eve sighed softly, only appearing the more embarrassed for my delayed attentions. “Oh geez… seriously?” She murmured, giving a soft, gaspy sounding giggle as I took another light swipe along the near collective length of her.

“Unless you’d prefer to remain a sticky mess.” I said, placing her legs down gently against the bed once I was certain she was properly cleaned up. I went ahead then and used the other side of the handkerchief to clean off my equally greased up cock. I kept my eyes pinned firmly away from Eve’s still very naked body as I did so; not wanting to risk further exciting myself in a state of such exhaustion that I was only likely to go and stroke out. (Pun not intended).

Satisfied that we were in the least a little cleaner than earlier, I scrunched the handkerchief and placed it down within the curled glass confines of the ashtray on my bedside table. Flicked a finger towards it lazily as I rolled back over to slot firm to Eve’s warm side.

“Don’t let me forget to take that with me.”

She laughed, reaching down underneath herself to extract the pillow that had earlier been wedged between her ass and the bed. “Be a hell of a thing to leave behind, wouldn’t it?” She remarked, examining a small, wet spot on the pillows surface and then tossing it over the side of the bed with a disdainful curl of her lip. “Uck… yucky.”

I sighed long and deep, feeling each of my muscles compress tension like the arterial chambers of a set of bellows as I settled my side down deep into the supportive springs of the mattress. Draped an arm up to form a halo above Eve’s head, plucking free yet more strands of damp hair that were clinging to her face from every which way. The air of the room felt plush from the heat that had accumulated within it; both from our activities and the persistently unseasonable weather. It was certainly making me feel sleepier than I might have already done.

I smiled at her; feathered my fingertips over her temple and lightly tugged a longer strand of hair free from her cheek.  “Well, to think… after a long year of wanting, hoping, praying… desperately fantasizing… ya finally got what you wanted.”

She laughed, of course, pulling a face and then slapping the palm of her hand against my arm. My still damp flesh produced a loud, resonant smack that sounded sharper still for the fact that it I was sweating.

“Good on ya.” She chuckled, sliding her palm over my waist and onto my hip. It wasn’t the one that was injured but she gave it a rub all the same; just as a reference point. “How’s your hip?”

I eased myself partway onto my front; reaching about to push the heel of my hand into my glute. “In about a thousand pieces.”

She gave my ass a conciliatory rub. Kneaded the heel of her palm deep into the muscle and worked it in circles; grinding up groans from the marrow of my being. “I’ve probably set your recovery back a good year or so.”

“Worth it.” I smiled, rubbing a finger to her chin before carefully tracing my fingertips back through her bangs. Soothing some of the longer strands up and away from the flattering tips of her eyelashes. Couldn’t help but wonder whether she at any point in time had been thinking about… had felt as though… “You okay?”

She gave a sharp sounding huff of a bark; clearly intent on having some fun at my expense.

“Flattering yourself much?”

I gave her a little look; urging her to be serious for just a moment. “There were a couple spots of blood on the handkerchief…”

I half expected her to whip her hand on down and take a closer look; thinking that this of all things might have startled her. Or help her realize that there was actually some pain. She did however, nothing of the sort. Just nodded slightly, tilting her head sidelong in further, unconcerned acknowledgement.

“Well it _has_ been a while, don’t forget. And it’s not like either of us took it very easy.”

A prospect that caused me to snort quite outside of my conscious bid to control it. “Don’t think I had it in me to take it easy, sorry Munch. Been wantin’ you real bad.” I trailed my fingers back across her forehead; down over her cheek and then back to trace circles against the sweat speckled indent of her temple. “I’d just hate to think that I ended up hurtin’ you, ya know?”

She smiled in that little way she had; that one which suggested I was being silly and rolled over onto her stomach. Something of a shame, as I had been enjoying the view but reconciled some by the as equally sublime cut of her swayed back and pert ass. I felt her kiss press to my cheek and did my utmost to pay it due attention. Difficult mind. I had seen Eve’s naked body, true but the way that the bronze glow of the candlelight offset the tanned skin of her buttocks… This was something else.

“I’m _fine_. I’m a little sore, but it’s a good kind of sore.” She was saying and the words brought me back; made me aware that _yes._ I _had_ made her bleed, if only slightly yet enough to undoubtedly cause pain. She then assuaged my guilt some; shuffling over and bringing her face close to mine. I could smell the sugary perfume of the cocktail permeating her breath. Made me think further still of where those rosy, now lipstick free lips had been earlier occupied. “And you know… between you and me, darling… you fuck _just the way I like_. So, don’t go and get it in your head that you need to be up and changing anything. Because _that_ was perfect.”

She kissed me and I felt an intrinsic shudder broach the columns of my bones; rippling down so far as the tiniest ounce of marrow in my littlest toe. Because yes, God yes! The sex had been _incredible._ Little could I argue with her the point of that! I failed to remember a time I had come as hard as I had with her. I felt such faintness of condition, yet dualistically such mental and physical ecstasy it struck me quite earnestly to rigours. I remembered quaking; trying to grip to her and feeling my fingers spasm across her skin like someone drunkenly attempting to ply their path across a typewriter. Grasping the sheet beside her head as my groin felt to move quite outside of my control; shoving up and in as I emptied myself deep inside of her. All the while thinking, in such a very primal way mind you, that I was… claiming her.

My lips formed themselves into a smile; most genuine in its response to my thoughts and I took her hand in mine. Gently caressed her fingers. Relieved to know that she’d enjoyed what we had done. That she _liked_ how I’d fucked her. Thought it was, in her words, perfect.

Her large, sleepy eyes sought me out; requesting some assurance to assuage her post-sex concerns, no doubt. The pads of her fingers caressed the cracked spaces between my own. My eyes followed the cast of candlelight that traced the line of her back like a caramel colored ribbon. 

“Honestly though… was it anything at all like you imagined?” She almost managed to sound flippant; as though my answer would be of little concern to her. If not for ever so intimately knowing that tell-tale look in her eyes; that one which said she was still not yet at peace with herself. “I’d just… hate to think I’d let you down.”

I scoffed, because quite honestly there was no more accurate a response in which to convey my utter disbelief in her statement. “Eve, the fact that you showed _up_ was enough, let alone the getting naked and climbing on my dick part.” She laughed at this, thank goodness and I turned all the more to get nice and up close. If I’d still been in possession of my nose, it would have been touching hers. “It wasn’t _anything_ like I imagined, darlin’. I could never have imagined sex bein’ like that.” A sigh left the deepest avenue of me and I placed her fingertips to my lips; relieved to feel that for the long year she’d spent living rough, they hadn’t hardened. I slid them along the line of my cheek. Soft. “God… it’s been so long since I’ve felt someone’s skin against mine. The fact that I got to feel that with you, is just the icin’ on the cake.” Kissed those lips. Those wonderful lips that had peppered my long-restrained flesh. Perhaps I’d had lovers in the past prepared to do such things; when I had been human and handsome. Never with the love and the humor she had expressed however. “You were incredible…”

She smiled at me, turning then to bury half her face into the mattress. It was such a cute expression; the way that her one visible eye stared up at me, her rosy cheek a traitor to her embarrassment. “Suffice to say, the feelings mutual.” She said, showing a few of those lovely straight teeth from the blanket of her upper lip. I played up to it; shrugging and feigning a haughtiness that came all too easy, given the high I was currently riding.

“Eh, I don’t get too many complaints.” To wit she laughed and I used the opportunity to snake my hand down along the bed and reef out from beneath us, one of the tangled top sheets that had been fairly mutilated as a result of her *ahem* efforts. With a flick, I created a vacuum beneath it and then drew the material up and over Eve’s body; feeling it was the gentlemanly thing to do. Though the view wasn’t nearly as nice as when she was sprawled there naked as the day she was born, I liked the way that the thin cloth draped the curves of her body. A sight like this would have damn near crippled me less than a year ago, should I have been lucky enough to have stumbled in on it.

To my surprise however, Eve responded not with gratitude but with a vehement sounding ‘pfft’ that she ejected from the corner of her mouth like a cobra spitting its venom through the hole in its fangs. Or so a book of the old world had suggested.

“Oh, I see.” She said, giving me a look that might have been genuinely reproachful if not for the shit stirring smile now firmly plastered upon her features. “Now you’re done with me, you don’t want to go looking at my frumpy old bod anymore.”

She was having a laugh, I knew but the fact that she persisted in demeaning _herself_ , if even in a light-hearted manner, annoyed me. It seemed to suggest still that in spite of such serious evidence to the contrary, that she considered herself for the most part undesirable. Some serious (and most likely, extremely fun) work was no doubt required to convince her otherwise.

I gave her that very look I’m quite certain she was accustomed to seeing at this stage. That, _‘Stop being so fucking stupid and pull your head in’_ look. I took a hold of the sheet again, whipping it back down off of her body with the verve of a magician whisking a tablecloth from beneath a tower of tottering glasses and allowed it to settle down to rest against her crossed ankles.

“Young lady,” I pronounced, rendering her to chuckling at my pompous Codsworthian like approximation. “If I could have it so that you should never don another stitch of clothing for the remainder of our days, I would just as soon as make it so.”

As she twisted back up onto her side, a means to make herself more comfortable I suppose, I reached across and ran my hand down over her shoulder, followed the line of her arm and dropped my fingers then to the dip of her waist. Rode it up to that dramatic peak which formed her smooth, round hip. This act alone caused my breath to spike. Being able to trace her body like this, so… freely. Maybe later I would spend some time just doing this. Touch and caress and palm and cup to each of these wonderfully sensuous little dips and peaks and valleys. Even those to which she professed to genuinely feel self-conscious about.

“And honestly?” I continued, for she herself had maintained that self-same expression of not wanting to be convinced these past few moments. I did what was needed, dipping my head and pressing a kiss to the suspended swell of her left breast; just abridge of the still dimpled loop of her areola. “I have never –” Pushed my lips now to her ribcage, just offside of her bellybutton. “– been to bed with a woman –” Lifted my hand now, so I could wrap my lips to that sweet curve of her hip. Closed my eyes to properly savour the sweat tanged salty flavour of her skin. “– whose body I have enjoyed more than yours.”

The chuckle she emitted now was one I was starting to know well. One of embarrassment betwixt with genuine desire. It lilted again as I took my time in kissing a path down from her hip now; pushing my lips into the indent that formed from the meeting of her upper thigh and stomach. She twitched a little as I stole my tongue into it; a reflexive jolt that sent a resonating prickle down into my own loins and made my still very burned out penis flick a metaphorical ear of interest.

“You be careful now, or we’ll be right back where we started.”

“If only the flesh weren’t in need of a breather.” I admitted with a soft groan of disappointment, draping my hand over Eve’s hip and grabbing up a good helping of her left ass cheek. I thought back to earlier, when I had knelt behind her; appreciating the way her new underpants had flattered what was irrefutably one hell of sweet donk. With a gentle tug, I rotated her just enough so that I could get a good look at the now bare globes. Right there, just below my pinkie finger, I spotted the already purpling bruise of the love bite I’d given her and couldn’t keep from smiling. It must have stung when I’d done it, but she hadn’t complained and I glanced my thumb over the mark; the little visual reminder as to what we had done. 

“Proud of yourself?” She asked, with a slight quirk of her brow. I sighed softly, lightly grazing my teeth back along the bruise; squeezing the cheek of her ass between both hands. My body might have been nursing itself through the little jittery quavers of post-sex euphoria but by God I was banking hard on a second wind.

“You got no idea…” I murmured, pressing a kiss to the speckled purple flower of the love bite. “Jesus… all the times I dreamt of digging my teeth into this sweet ass of yours, squeezing it in my hands…” In case my words left something to be misconstrued, I took another good squeeze of her; granting a kiss back now to the indent of her thigh. “Mmm…”

That little laugh again; just barely expunged from within what I’m certain would have otherwise been a throaty moan. “Man… just when I thought you were done with making me blush…”

“Oh, just you wait ‘til I’ve had my requisite two-hour Nana Nap and then I’ll be doing more’n making you blush.” I said, sliding back up her body and giving her a little smirk and a long, hopefully tender kiss. The feeling of our bodies pressed together felt so good I was tempted to forget about my (rather already neglected) responsibilities and snuggle on down into her arms for another snooze. But I was pushing my luck, I knew. It was easier to think that the guys had just been tryin’ to bust my chops by patching in but from the few words I’d managed to make out (from the midst of my otherwise distracted state) suggested that this was far from the case.

They’d opened from the get go with apologies and repeated insistences that I get back to them ASAP because… Ah, there was where my memory got fuzzy. It was hard to pay attention to such things when you had a big, beautiful blonde wrapped around your dick. 

I slumped deeper to the curves of Eve’s body still; moaned softly as her fingers massaged my back and scalp. This was just cruel and impossible. I’d finally made love to the woman I’d been chasing for over a year and for that matter, had had _sex_ for the first… proper time in over twelve months. Never mind how long it had been since I’d gone all up and naked with someone else like this. Skin to skin contact like this was the most addictive Chem of all, when it came to us Ghouls. Most of us would clear out our Cap account without a moments’ hesitation, if we thought it might get us a bit of one on one naked time. And the lengths most jokers would go to for a blow job! I’m sure any number of crimes had been committed across the Commonwealth; all in the name of a solid deep-throating.

But this soft, gentle and entirely genuine caress was perhaps the very hardest of all to break away from. Eve’s lazy, contented administrations said that she too felt comforted and at peace with where we were. The way she snuggled to me in turn; wound her legs about mine across the sheets… The only saving grace I think, was that it was still so damn hot. It wasn’t as comfortable to lay there all tangled up in each other as it might have been on a cold night. I could feel streams of sweat forming between us already and droplets had carved their way down Eve’s side, to slip lithely around into the sway of her back.

“Ahh…” I groaned, lifting my head with such effort you would think someone had gone and tied lead weights to the back of it. I put my forehead to hers; kissed the space between two strands of hair that had curled into the shape of scythes. “I’d better go and call these jokers back…”

She nodded reluctantly; reaching up to trace her fingers across my cheek. “Yeah… all of Goodneighbor could have been beamed up my aliens by now and you and I would be none the wiser.”

“Wisdom is overrated.” I gave her another kiss before then sliding to the side of the bed. “You need anything while I’m up?”

She pulled herself slowly, agonizingly into a seated position. The hair on the back of her head puffed up like the little ducks’ backside from earlier. The candlelight hit her curves at all the right and all the wrong angles simultaneously. And damn if every inch of it wasn’t fucking perfect.

“It’s all good, darl. Need to go and have myself a wee. I’ll grab some water while I’m up.” She sighed, making an attempt to soothe her coif down and flashed a look at me from beneath very heavy lids. “May I have my underpants back now, please?”

“No, you may not.” And because she was flashing me a filthy look, added: “I told you; they’re a memento.”

“Is that your thing?” She asked, lifting her brow curtly; knees pulled up closer to her chest and arms draped upon them almost casually. She tilted her cheek down to meet the peeks of them, stared from beneath her hair. Hmmm… little bit sexy, that. “Do you keep the undies of all the girls you’ve had your wicked way with?”

“You know it.” I winked, staggering up onto my feet with all the grace my mother displayed whenever she got drunk at a Diamond City special occasion. “Pin ‘em to a corkboard down in my basement cellar. Like the worlds creepiest butterfly collection.”

Eve laughed a little, though it was a stilted effort. I don’t think she liked seeing me favouring my leg again; little though I could do about it. The Med-X was still kicking about in my system, taking a good lick out of the pain but the natural inhibition of the injury still kept it stiff when I moved it a certain way.

“Gross.” She remarked, in what I choose to believe was a reference to my earlier comment about pantie hoarding. And not my naked body sashaying about in front of her. “But seriously, hand ‘em over.”

She snapped her fingers and held her palm out towards me in what I suppose she thought was an ‘end of the discussion’ sort of way. In response. I picked up my trousers, took her underpants out from the pocket and dangled them from my finger; giving them a little spin like a Vertibird propeller.

“Nope.”

I thought Eve might have flung herself from the bed at this provocation; it was certainly what she might have done in the past if I’d teased her as such. But of course, she hadn’t been naked in those instances. (Mores the pity). She remained perched on the bed; keeping her breasts veiled behind her knees and instead offered me up a full-mouthed gape of exasperation.

“You don’t even _wear_ underpants yourself and now you wanna go and keep mine?”

“Yours are prettier.” And then, because the point needed proving and I was feeling high on life and post sex chemicals and synthetics alike, I took the underpants between both hands, dropped them to my ankles and, with much flourish, proceeded to slide my feet down through the leg holes. Eve’s eyes narrowed in response; her left brow forming that perfect question mark Deacon had been correct in earlier describing.

“You’re not serious.”

“As a heart attack.” I managed to balance long enough on my bad leg to get both safely inside of the underpants. With a wiggle and a squiggle, I worked the little lace underthings up my thighs and onto my hips. They were a little on the tight side and they rode up the crack of my ass but I hammed it up all the same; doing a little turn on the spot so that Eve could appreciate how they looked from behind. “Huh?”

She was laughing by then; pressing her fingers almost daintily over her lips, whilst she not so daintily snorted through them.  “Oh my God… Meg’d be having a heart attack if she knew what you were doing right now.”

I scoffed, making an effort to adjust myself at the front and wondering all the while how women tolerated having these little flecks of material hoiked up their hinnies all day long. Couldn’t deny it looked a damn treat when they got their kit off but still…

“As if Meyer hasn’t paraded around in front of her in a lace thong.” I remarked, sadder for the fact that this most likely wasn’t an embellishment of reality. You just know those folks who pretended to not be into each other were actually up to the kinkiest shit. “Hell, she probably _made_ him model her underpants before she put them on the shelves.”

“Just don’t come crying to me when the edges start cutting into you.” Eve laughed, taking up one of the pillows and pitching it towards me. I chanced a little kick as it careened through the air, glancing it off to the side with my bad leg. Not much pain, which was a good thing. Though the image likely hadn’t done Eve any favors.

“Ain’t my first rodeo, Munch. Used to dance out in the street wearing a pair of these.” And because I doubted I’d freaked her out enough, I did light-hearted version of what I considered to be my ‘sexy dance’. Lucky for her that my hip was only tentatively repaired; otherwise I might have hopped on up on the bed and propped a leg on either side of her.  

The abridged version however was enough to send Eve into giggling hysterics and she waved an arm pleadingly at me; still managing to keep herself rolled up into her little modesty coil on the bed.

“Please, stop! I’m not gonna make it to the bathroom!”

“Fine.” I chuckled, ceasing with the hip swishing and reaching down to slide my pants on. I took the sash back from about the bed post and tied it about my hips; keeping my trousers somewhat sanctioned about my person. Felt a crime to be getting dressed given the time of night and the going’s on but better to be somewhat prepared if I had to, sigh… be going somewhere.  “Everyone’s a critic.”

In response to my absconding with her undergarments, Eve finally unfurled herself and splayed out across the bed; scrabbling at the floor as a means to reach my shirt. It was a nice opportunity to admire her curves again and I made no efforts now to pretend that I was doing anything other.

“Fine.” She said, having finally snagged a hold of the shirt and bringing it onto the bed with her. She sat up, sliding her arms through the sleeves and then buttoning up the front to just barely above her navel. I’m guessing she did this in keeping with the theme of the evening, because her eyes flickered to me just as her fingers left that last, yet not at all final, button. “Well, I’m taking your shirt as collateral.”

“Looks better on you, anyhow.” I said truthfully, watching as she rolled over now to rest on her stomach, kicking her legs up behind her. She reached back with her hand to tuck the shirt tail over her rump; a right proper shame given that it looked better peeking out from the bottom, but oh well.

I crossed to the bedside table, plucked up the walkie talkie and held it up in the air for Eve to take stock of. Gave it a little waggle, very much begrudging the things existence.

“Any luck, I can deal with this shit over the waves.”

“Hope so.” Eve said, smirking at me from beneath the floof of her hair again. “‘Cause I’m still bankin’ on that bath and backrub, darl.”

“Sounds good to me.” I crossed to the other side of the bed, closest her and leant down so I could cup a hand to her cheek. I planted a kiss between her brows; fighting the urge to just dive straight on back into that bed and give Meaghan some hemming work to do on that shirt in the morning. “Love you.”

Her smirk softened; turned instead to a smile of genuine warmth and she eased herself up, rubbing the tip of her nose to the apex of my nasal cavity. “I love _you._ ” She murmured, kissing me the once softly before then struggling up off of the bed. Because we were of similar height, when she stood the shirt tails barely covered her ass and I reached around, giving her left cheek a pinch as she made to step on by me. She squeaked of course, tucking her bottom in as much as possible and shooting a pout over her shoulder as she made her way towards the bathroom. I waited until she’d stepped inside, enjoying the way she looked in my barely there shirt, before making my way over to the cooler.

I took a beer out, cracked the cap and slugged back a few good mouthfuls. Still cold, thank god. I was feeling about as dry as old boot leather (no pun intended) so I drained about half the bottle in one go and then rolled the glass across my forehead and chest; trying to cool myself off.

Shit wasn’t easy though. I was feeling great. As relaxed as if I’d taken a few decent drags of Chark and as high as a full canister of Jet on a two-breath inhale. Every inch of my clammy, sweat blemished body was tingling with those tiny, post-sex prickles that made you feel like a livewire was running through your nerve endings.

It felt like a weight had been lifted… crude as that probably sounds. It had been over a year since I’d had… proper sex and just as long since I’d taken a keen interest in Eve being the one to meet said urges. To say I felt ‘great’ was something of an understatement.

I took up the pack of smokes from inside of my waistcoat, rustling up my lighter and balancing them in the hand that wasn’t still clutching the neck of my beer bottle and the plastic ring of the Walkie. I made my way over to the balcony door, eased it open and stepped outside. The night air wrapped around me, encapsulated the heated plains of my chest and tapered some of the warmth from my skin. I groaned softly, tilting my head back and rolling it from side to side. The room had been horribly muggy… And no small wonder, given what we’d been doing.

I perched myself on the Jack and Jill, nursing the Walkie absently from one hand, whilst lighting up another cigarette with the other. I took a few puffs in, slogged from my beer. Went over in my mind what had just happened between Eve and I.

We’d done it. _Finally._ After all this time and all those near misses and all those myriad, contrived, teasing fantasies I’d nursed, we’d finally hit the sheets. And _fuck_ that had been some good sex. More than worth the wait. I hadn’t expected her to have been so… confident, in bed. Almost dominant, at times. The way she’d climbed on top of me, taken my hands in hers and then gone right on ahead and impaled herself… God damn that shit felt fine.

Not to mention how tight she was. There was a tiny, unfair part of me that suspected that because she was a Mom her cunt would feel… looser, I guess. I’d had such experiences with women who’d had children before. But Eve looked (and felt) pretty damn good, considering that she’d pushed what I’d heard was a thumper of a baby out of the thing.

I knew I should have been calling the boys back lickety-split but I spent far too long just sitting there, smoking and sipping and going over some of my favorite moments in my head. I knew I must have had a big old shit eaters grin plastered across my face but cared little to do anything about it. My mind kept wandering back to that first proper look I’d gotten of her naked body; spread out across the sheets, knees and thighs parted. As beautiful as I’d always imagined. The taste of her lingered on my tongue and in the corners of my lips. I thought of the mark I’d made to her inside thigh, the cheek of her ass and her neck… the way she’d shivered and whimpered when she came. How she’d felt when I pushed up into her that very first time. How she clenched and squeezed about me; her body shuddering through another series of contractions that shifted and rubbed and –

A loud knock resonated from across the room and I jerked up off of the Jack and Jill, staring through the gap of the sliding door. It came again; a few solid, somewhat irritated sounding bangs from the front door.

“What the fuck…?” I muttered, placing my still lit cigarette down into the Jack and Jill’s ashtray and slinking my way back through the balcony access like a cat on the prowl. I was painfully aware of Eve being in the bathroom and the bathroom’s proximity to the front door in turn. I wanted to get between them as soon as possible, just in case the unthinkable had happened. Namely, Marowski or one of his many goons having figured out where we were.

I crouched by the bed, keeping my eyes on the door whilst scrabbling about with my fingertips to try and find the leather sheathe that contained my knife. It had dropped from the band of my pants when I’d tugged them off earlier and I’d felt it hit the ground with a dull thud. Hadn’t really cared at the time but now I was mentally kicking myself for being remiss of something so important. Eve’s handbag would be a better bet; given the large calibre magnum she kept in there but the damn thing was sitting up on the kitchen bench. I wanted to be armed before I got any closer to the front door and whoever was lurking behind it.

My fingers finally scraped the leather sheathe and I plucked the knife free; clutching it so that the blade faced forwards. Something that always looked the more intimidating. My knee and hip couldn’t handle much more of this crouched position, Med-X notwithstanding and I was forced to straighten up a little as I approached the door.

There was a peephole, clean enough to see through due to my fastidious (and somewhat paranoid) attentions and I went to put my eye to it when I saw the green glow emanating from beneath the door; eliminating the need for this measure entirely. I went ahead and checked anyway. Sure enough, Jack Morales, lolling about larger than life on the front doorstep. Of all the crew the boys decided to send and they fetch out the nuclear marinated fucking night light? Don’t go and give Marowski and his gang a _challenge_ or nothin’, fellas…

“You alone out there, Jack?” I called, not able to get a good enough bead on the hall around him. His natural glow and the mood lighting aside, it was still dark out there and I was having difficulty seeing more than a bee’s dick in any direction.

Jack’s eyes, stretched wider at the edges due to the fish bowl effect of the peep hole, flashed humorlessly as he peaked the tip of his hat. “As alone as I always am. Could ya open up, boss?”

I didn’t much want to and my eyes went rolling like a teenagers before I had a mind to put a stop to them. Whatever was going on, it was reason enough for one of the boys to battle his way on up here to get to me and that was no easy feat. That much I’d made sure of. So I went ahead and bit back my true feelings on the matter and unlatched the door, placing the knife offside on the kitchen counter once I’d double checked to make sure no one was dogging Jack’s tail. Good and certain that he’d come alone, I ushered him on in and promptly locked the door behind us.

“How the hell d’you get past all my traps without blowing what’s left of your face off?” I asked, leaning against the counter and crossing my arms over my chest. Sure, it wasn’t the nicest hello a guy could offer but I wasn’t feeling altogether charitable right then and there. One could say I’d used up my energy on other things more beneficial than masquerading pretence.

Jack wedged his hands deep into his trouser pockets; his expression lending itself without protest to one of utmost discomfort. I found this unusual, to say the least. It was Jack, more than anyone in the Watch, who had the misfortune to have come across me either mid or post nasty before. Jack more than anyone who’d been stationed just outside my bedroom door enough times to have an embarrassingly intimate knowledge of just what sort of noises I made at the point of ejaculation. (Which he equated to not being dissimilar to a Radgull choking on a Fancy Lads Snack Cake). And here he was, acting like someone had just gone and dropped sand down the back of his pants.

“Had to get the fancy robot butler to talk me through it. Wouldn’t have gone to the effort it wasn’t important.” His luminous eyes raised themselves from the floor with such struggle you’d think they were lined with lead. He did a few careful double-tap peeks about the room, as tentative as a starving animal working up to pluck a dangling piece of food from your proffered fingertips. His gaze lingered on the rumpled bed linen a while, pupils darting about surreptitiously before flicking back to me. “Eve is, uh…?”

Amused, I jerked my thumb over towards the hall; my gesture timed perfectly to the gurgling rushing of pipes. “She’s in the-”

I was interrupted by the bathroom door slamming shut and Eve wandered out, blithely as you like, giving her hair a half-hearted distracted ruffle as she came. I couldn’t help but notice that the act of raising her arm, caused my shirt to ride higher on her left thigh. This resulted in the right sleeve of the shirt coming loose, the shoulder slipping free and dropping to fall even with the first button that had been cinched – located somewhere below the swell of her breast.

Eve gave a startled yelp as I launched myself towards her with as much momentum as an awful old cripple like me could muster. I grabbed the ruffled neckline of the shirt and yanked it up; far too late to prevent Jack from getting a good old look (and believe you me, he hadn’t been looking anywhere else) but wanting to protect what remained of Eve’s modesty as much as possible. Her confused ‘What the’s?’ and ‘Calm the farm’s’ turned to a shriek of the variety that would give most tea kettles a pause for thought and her hands started immediately flapping about her chest; trying to cover up what I had already pinned back into place.

“Jack! Oh my God – what did I have hanging out? You didn’t just see my boob, did you?!” She squawked, which must have been a rhetorical question given the smug, self-satisfied grin squared firm to Jack’s glowing mug.

“Who, me? Naww Munch, didn’t see nothin’.” Jack lied, all the while directing every ounce of his anatomic energy into searing a hole through my body so he could keep on checking out the ‘nothin’. I expected no less but made a point still of defending Eve’s virtue and jabbed my finger towards him in a clear mark of reproach. More for her sake than his, mind you.

“Hear now; I catch wind of you slipping off to the Memory Den to watch that on rewind Jack, there’ll be a foot in your ass.”

Jack chuckled, quirking his shoulder in a lazy, unconcerned gesture. “Got my very own rewind function all up here, boss.” He tapped a finger to his temple, flashed a wink. “Besides, just told ya I didn’t see nothin’. Too busy checkin’ out that hair free pair of pins. Lookin’ good, Munch.”

I thought Eve might have been more upset for being virtually seen topless but she recovered better than I anticipated; taking the collar of the shirt from between my hands and buttoning it up as far as she was able. Still barely broached the peak of her cleavage but better still than being down somewhere around her bellybutton. She brushed the creases from the front, staring between the two of us with a serious look on her face. I could see now that the desire to make a big deal out of her near nudity paled in comparison to the fact that Jack was here in the first place and what that meant.

“I assume you’re not here because John thought we needed to spice things up with a little two on one action?”

I pretended to weigh this one up as Jack alternated between looking equally troubled and dualistically intrigued by the suggestion. “Tempting, but I thought it might be a bit much on a first date.”

“Sorry to crash your evening, Munch.” Jack said, looking far more sorry than I’m reasonably certain he felt. He did after all get a free screening to one of the two breasts that I had spent over a year busting my hump to get a peek at. “But I uh… I do need ta bend your boys ear for just a moment.”

Eve raised her hands, accepting it seemed, without protest. “Say no more. It’s okay. Need to take myself a shower anyway.”

She made her way over into the kitchenette to fetch that glass of water she’d been talking about before Jack had gone and crashed the party. We tracked her movements, an appreciation I couldn’t begrudge Jack for having, given that she was remarkably easy on the eyes. Watched as she took a glass from one of the top drawers, turning to face in our direction as she did; directing her bottom to the other side of the room. The shirt was riding up as she stretched, you see, and she seemed to find it easier to hold it down over her groin than she did her butt. Mores the pity but I didn’t really want Jack getting much more of that sort of look at her and in that vein I gave a sharp pitch of a whistle between my teeth; catching his attention. He gave it, reluctantly I might add and I jerked my head to the side, indicating that he turn around and give her some privacy. With a sulky sounding sigh that wasn’t at all appropriate for a man his age (however old that was) Jack swivelled about and faced the dusty old gap where the refrigerator had once resided.

Grateful, Eve was able now to reach up into the cupboard without having to contort herself like a Circus Freak. Having retrieved a glass, she expressed her gratitude by flipping up the back tail of the shirt, exposing her bare bottom for me to take another look at. Damn… All poor Jack got to look at was half a deteriorated fridge magnet and a fluff speckled dust bunny. Sucks to be him.

Eve went ahead and filled her water glass, taking a few good slugs from it as she made her way out of the kitchenette. She paused by my side, leaned in to press a kiss to my cheek.

“Take your time.” She said, flashing a smile as she turned and wiggled her way back down the small hallway back towards the bathroom.

“Try not to spend too long fiddling with yourself in there.” I called after her, a suggestion that roused a snorting laugh from Jack in response. “We’re on tank water.”

Eve laughed, turning and throwing a suggestive wink back over her shoulder. “I think I’ve had my fair share of fiddling for one night, darl.”

Sensing that it was perhaps safe to do so now, Jack swivelled back around; the glow of his skin noticeably brightening that enth degree further. It was something I’d observed happening whenever he was experiencing a flush of emotion; usually excitement or happiness and an occurrence, I feel, was quite outside of his conscious efforts to control.

“Need any mood lighting in there?” He asked, a wave like motion passing along the ridge of his brow as he quirked them in what I’m sure he thought was a provocative way. Eve chuckled softly and gave him a scolding look in return.

“Got some candles. Thanks for your… concern though, Jack.” She gave a small tinkling of her fingers before stepping through the bathroom door and bringing it shut neatly behind her with a firm clicking of the door handle. Jack hefted a long, low sigh before returning his attention to me; shaking his head in plain disbelief.

“You lucky bastard.”

“Don’t gotta tell me twice.” I scoffed, trying my best to pretend as though Jack’s unsolicited peek of Eve’s tits wasn’t rubbing me up the wrong way. Didn’t consider myself to have so much as a jealous bone in my body but still...

Jack’s smirked, rubbing a hand over the back of his neck as his glowing eyes returned to focus on the bathroom door; working no doubt to bore a hole through the wood by sheer willpower alone.

“Worth runnin’ the gauntlet just for a look at that.” He chuckled, lips curving up into a ‘I’m well pleased with myself’ smile, which suggested he wasn’t gonna be going and forgetting that little glimpse he’d gotten either. “Carmine’s gonna be pissed he didn’t throw his hat in the ring.”

“She sure is somethin’.” I concurred, rationalizing that it could have been a lot worse. Could indeed have been Carmine or Pattie who wandered on in rather than Jack. At least he had _something_ resembling a maturity of character that the others clearly didn’t possess. He’d be… marginally less likely to gossip about it too. Maybe. “In all meanings of the expression.”

“No kiddin’…” He continued staring at the bathroom, taking a long, thoughtful breath before drifting his gaze on over to merge with mine once more. “Phew… right. Where was I?”

“Intrudin’ on a brothers’ evening, last I checked.”

For the first time since he’d stepped foot in the room, Jack actually looked a little annoyed. “I’m sorry boss but we’ve been trying to get a hold of ya for the past hour. What, you go and switch the short wave off, or what?”

“I was otherwise… engaged.” I said meaningfully; an inference that really wasn’t required given that Jack had already seen the end results of my ‘engagement’.

“Yeah well, can’t say I blame ya none.” He said, glancing towards the bathroom door again. The sound of running water hitting porcelain made me aware of the fact that Eve was likely undressing at that very moment. Something Jack seemed all too conscious of. He glanced at me from the corner of his eye and lifted his brows; that look which said he knew he might be prying more than was necessary but couldn’t resist. “Worth the wait?”

I took my weight off of the kitchen bench, making my way back over to where the balcony door sat ajar. My cigarette was burned down to about the halfway mark and I plucked it up; tapping free the ash and taking a deep draw back which I chased with another shot of beer. I gave Jack a slight smile as he leaned his shoulder in the doorway, still patiently awaiting my response.

“And then some.”

He made a sort of tutting snort with his mouth; the one he trotted out when he was frustrated. I’d known him long enough to learn to translate his moods through his gestures.

“Lucky devil. Cut my leg off, it would land me a woman like that…”

The way he kept pitching his eyes back towards the bathroom, made me think he was hankering for more than just a confirmation. And in the past, I might very well have gone into explicit detail about the women I’d fucked. As men we can be vicarious that way and the envy for one of your pals having scored with a hot piece was all part of the fun. But I was older now. Bragging about the stuff you and she and you’d both done no longer held the appeal it once had. Not to mention that Eve was both a lover _and_ a friend. I wasn’t about to go behind her back; sharing all the nitty gritty of what had been a very personal and very private moment. Well… a little grit, maybe but just enough to keep the boys green.

“Hey, much as I’d love to regale you with all the gory details –”

Jack shut his eyes tight a moment, seeming to give himself a little mental shake. “Right. Yeah... _right._ ” He used a fingertip to push up the brim of his hat, as it had dropped a touch whilst we’d been talking. His gaze was an unusually serious one. “This um… it’s… it’s a biggy.”

I took up my cigarette packet and offered him one, but he waved it away after a moments’ hesitation.

“No, I uh… won’t. Told the others I’d just pass on the message and get back as quick as I can. The fellas have it under control but keeping something like this under wraps-”

“Jack, you’re starting in the middle again. What’s going on?” Concern leached in, where before there had been room alone for hormones. With the fuzz of satisfaction slowly lifting from my brain, it occurred to me that something dreadful may very well have happened. And I’d paid it less mind than a hairball tucked out of sight beneath a credenza. “Is everyone okay?”

“Yeah, yeah we’re all good, boss. All the watch, the towns folks.” Jack said and I relaxed some at this, because I knew I could never forgive myself if someone had died and I’d ignored the call. Hell of a way to put a dampener on our first night together, too. “It’s actually uh…” He sighed, struggling to string his words together. He took his hat off and lent his fingernails to a dry patch on the back of his scalp; a bad habit that manifested whenever he was feeling particularly nervous. “Jesus, you just gotta see it to believe it.”

“Brother the cryptic shit? It’s gettin’ old _fast._ ” I stubbed out the cigarette I’d barely smoked and bumped another one up out of the pack. Lit the tip with my lighter and drew in a much deeper breath than usual. Hoped that it would take the edge off of whatever it was Jack was clumsily struggling towards. “What’s goin’ on?”

“It’s Marowski.”

I felt as if an icy finger had stole its way through the warm breeze of the night to alight its cold touch through the fibres of my nerves. Smoke drifted back up out of me unabetted by the attendance of my breath. I choked a moment; because it was wending to places it ought not be and I turned enough to blast tangles of poison fog and spit back out into the air. When I thought it safe to speak without further risk of asphyxiating myself I dropped the cigarette back into the ashtray and straightened up. I couldn’t make heads or tails of Jack’s expression but I think he felt about as much confusion as I myself did. Which was curious, to say the least.

“You found ‘im?”

He scoffed, dropping his hat back onto his head in such a way that it fell crooked. I don’t think he particularly cared.

“Found him all right. Cocksuckers _dead._ ”

This hit me so hard that I didn’t know what to say. For the first time in a long time, I could have been taken out by a thick enough feather. 

“He’s… _what?_ ” A lick of anger went through me and I felt my eyes pin themselves almost entirely shut. _“_ Did one of you go and take the bastard out? I thought I made it perfectly goddamn clear-”

Jack held up both hands defensively. “That’s just the thing, boss. We don’t know who went and rubbed the fucker out. We _found_ him dead! I’m tellin’ ya, you gotta see this shit to believe it!”

“Where’d you find him?”

Jack didn’t reply at first. Just gave me a look that said he was very sorry that I had ever asked the question in the first place.

 

**XxXxXxXxXx**

 

Eve was still in the shower when Jack got on his way; though to be fair, the remainder of our conversation had been brief. She’d likely only had her head under the water five or so minutes.

I took myself over to the toilet, fetched the lid up and knocked down my fly. Leaned a hand on the wall as I took the piss I’d been meaning to have the past ten minutes.

“You ain’t gonna believe this one, babe.” I called, raising my voice so that it could be heard over the pounding of the shower water. The plastic rings of the curtain rattled along the steel rod as she tugged it aside. I watched in the mirror as she poked her head into view; hair flat against her scalp and stuck to the sides of her face in lovely curls.

“Gotta be bad, Jack braved all those explosives and crap just to get to you.” She didn’t say boo about my taking a piss in front of her, but in the year we’d been travelling together, such things had become more common place than you’d expect. Her eyes widened with alarm and she pulled the curtain tight to the line of her body. “Oh God… it’s not one of the guys, is it?”

I could see her about to hurl herself, soap suds and all from the shower stall and shook my head quickly so as to calm her down.

“No, no. Everyone’s fine.” I said, shaking myself off and pressing down on the flush button. I moved to the sink as fresh water flooded and circulated the toilet bowl. “‘Cept Marowski, that is.”

Eve’s eyes widened even further, so that she might very well have resembled my own expression when Jack had given me the news. “They found him? Wh- _Aaagh!!_ ” She recoiled from beneath the shower head, dashing her hand out to redirect its flow towards the wall temporarily. “ _Shit_ , that’s cold!!”

“Whoops.” I chuckled, giving my hands a quick wash with a bar of soap. “Sorry hun, wasn’t thinking.”

“Geez… that’s a nipple tweezer and a half that one.” She remarked, momentarily obscured by the curtain falling back into place. I dried off my hands and made my way over, whipping the curtain back entirely so I could see her. “Oi – do you mind?”

“Not at all.” I murmured, forgetting all at once the serious bend our conversation had taken. Her skin was dotted with thick drops of water and small puffs of soap. Some trailed down to split and fork across her flesh; disappearing into all those lovely nooks I’d since explored. She pressed her hands over her breasts; an act of modesty that did precious little besides stir me up even more. I wanted to reach in; rub my hands all across the wet plains of her body. Might have done, if the situation outside hadn’t gone south.

Eve must have been thinking the same thing, for she reached across and twisted the water off. I took a towel from the rack and walked it over; wrapping it around her. She pinned the folds in over her chest but remained in the shower bay, waiting for me to continue speaking.

I leaned back on the sink, crossing my arms and ankles. Felt a little pain in my hip as the weight sank into it. Med-X must have been wearing off.

“Someone got to him first.” I said and then, because she was looking at me in such a way, clarified: “Bastards dead. What’s more, whoever’s done it, went and hanged him from the Statehouse balcony.”

Her mouth dropped so dramatically that she just about impaled her chest with her chin. Her fingers cinched ever more tightly about the folds of the towel and I worried for a moment that she was on the verge of falling down right there and then in the bathtub. It looked like all the blood had drained out of her face.

“John, that’s…that’s right off of your bedroom.”

“Tell me about it.” I sounded a lot more flippant about the fact than I actually felt. But the desire to keep Eve as calm as possible fed an unshakeable resolve through me; one that insisted on my remaining still and cool and collected. Never was the need more apparent than now. Eve’s eyes had taken on a frantic cadence and she stepped on out of the bath; looking for all intents and purposes like she was about to take off running at any moment. I don’t think I’d ever seen quite as much of the whites of her eyes as I had in that moment.

“Do you think they went into your room?” She raked her fingers back through the dripping tendrils of her hair. Paced the flor as much as was possible; speaking mainly to herself as she went. Dripping water everywhere. “Doesn’t seem possible… I mean, how would they get Marowski up there without any of the watchmen seeing? I mean… he’s a big guy, so…”

“How did Marowski even leave the Statehouse today without being seen? There’s something fishy as fuck goin’ on in that place.” I heaved myself up off of the sink with a groan, flashing Eve a sincerely apologetic look that I felt with every ounce of my being. “Sorry darlin, but I…”

I jerked my thumb towards the door; indicating that I needed to hike on out of here. I sort of expected Eve to kick up some kind of stink (that was definitely what I was feeling inside myself) but she once more surprised me with her maturity; waving a hand placatingly and scooping it towards the door as though in fact _urging_ me onward to my responsibilities.

“Of course. Go. You do what you gotta do.” She said and my admiration of her character wrestled for place of purchase amongst my indignation of the circumstances. Surely she could have acted up a bit, yeah? Made it harder for me to go… got a bit fiery and belligerent. Not that I wanted a shouting match or nothing but it would sure as hell make the inevitable steamy reunion that much more… interesting.

Whatever the case, it was a moot point. Given the circumstances, it wasn’t like I could just up and leave her here all on her own.

“I know it’s a pain but I’d prefer you come with me.” I rubbed sweat from the back of my neck; the heat from the overhead lamp bearing down on my skin in a way that was borderline intolerable. Like standing near an open oven door… “So much screwy shit goin’ on right now, I’m not even sure I trust this place.”

Eve looked confused for a moment, as though she hadn’t been expecting this request at all. All too quickly, she pulled herself together and gestured back towards the shower with a jerk of her thumb.

“Okay, um… well, I just gotta wash this soap all off and… why don’t you jump on in and give yourself a quick wash too? Just enough to get the sweat off.”

An invitation that would have been so much the sexier if not for the stupid happenstances of the outside world. Christ… couldn’t the universal clock just take a night off and stop fucking ticking? I swear, if I could find some interdimensional bunker with silk sheets and an honours bar, I would secret Eve away without a moments thought and throw a big old set of chains around that sucker. For a minute uninterrupted!

“Was thinking that. Not like Marowski’ll be going anywhere.” I took the sash from around my waist, setting it on the sink before unbuttoning, unzipping and sliding my pants on down my legs. I left them where they fell, taking Eve’s towel from her as she unwrapped herself and leaned over to turn the water back. She turned to me, saw me standing there still wearing her underpants and snorted; giving me a playful shove in the chest.

“You know this a little traumatizing, right?” She not really asked, sliding her finger into the strap on my hip and pulling it out just enough to get a good old snap against my skin. I retaliated, reaching behind her and sliding my fingers down beneath the lowest curves of her ass. Gave her a pinch that made her squeal and tuck and curl away from me reflexively. “Stop that, you freakin’ perve!”

“The day I stop will be the day you wonder why.” I smirked, pulling the underpants down and quickly tossing them over towards the sink before she could jump up and get a grip on them. She mock scowled at me, walking backwards towards the bath with her arm shielding both her breasts and her vagina from any further tweakings. She turned to step up into the tub, quickly flinging both hands back to cover her bottom. “You’re no fun.”

“Fun and games in a porcelain setting is how heads get cracked open.” Eve snorted in her most prudish affectation. Didn’t stop her from giving me a pinch to the ass as I climbed up beside her, adjusting the shower head so that the water was now directed back towards us. It was lukewarm; which seemed a little too toasty so far as my tastes went. I took the temperature down a notch and breathed a sigh of relief to feel the cool water wash over my steamy flesh. Eve, mostly now shielded by my body, let out a shriek as some of the water jettisoned past and splashed off of her.

“No, that’s cold! That’s too cold!!”

I sighed, twisting the tap back up to where Eve had it resting before. “Dames and their weird need to boil themselves alive… You do know it’s warm outside tonight, right?”

“Doesn’t mean I wanna remind myself of what winter feels like…” She grumbled, turning sideways and shuffling along in front of me to try and get back under the flow of water. The shower situation in Thomas’s apartment was more than a little awkward. Unlike a normal shower, you shared a bathtub; which meant that Eve and I were forced to almost stand in line, one behind the other so as to have access to the shower head. Or, as Eve was currently attempting to do, squash up tight to one another to form a clumsy ‘big spoon, little spoon’ arrangement. Definitely not as sexy as I had imagined it, but to be fair, I had imagined it in a much more generous shower bay than this one.

“Have they uh… cut him down?” Eve asked, completing her trek into the inner sanctum of the shower bay and retrieving the still frothy bar of soap from where she’d earlier deposited it.

“Leaving as is until both me and the Doc get over there for a look.” I sighed as Eve directed the shower head more in my direction, leaving herself clear of the spray for the moment. To my relief, she adjusted the temperature some, so that it was a little cooler than before. I could practically feel the steam rolling off my skin. “Uh… damn that feels good.”

She pushed her hands up against my shoulders, urged me to turn around.

“Here. I’ll do your back.”

I swivelled on a dime, using one hand braced against the wall to take some of the weight off of my bung leg. Eve’s soaped palms traversed the plains of my spine; rubbing and digging and caressing in good and hard. Trying to work most of that sweat out from the tears in my flesh. Reminded me of back in Outpost Zimoji; the very first time she’d properly touched me. The first proper rub down I’d had since becoming a Ghoul. I’d gotten a little more used to it… in the last few hours alone. Still felt as amazing as that very first touch, however. I still groaned to feel it. Still felt it work the inner chambers of my being; felt it strum and stir my basest and most primal of impulses.

“… Could have been… anyone, I suppose.” Eve said after a while, having been mulling things over in her own thoughts. Not the same route my own had taken but then… I was selfish when it came to my ponderings. Prefer to think of the beautiful naked woman I was in the shower with, as opposed to the puffy, douche nozzle hanging from the balcony of my bedroom. “Not like he was short on enemies.”

I gave a gruff sounding grunt; losing some its intended ‘oomph’ for the fact that I was all but curling up with pleasure at her ministrations.

“Hanging seems like too merciful a death for that cunt.” I hissed, tilting my head back as Eve’s palms worked the soap down over the cheeks of my ass. She ground in harder here; working through to the hip that she knew needed the attention. Another part of my anatomy was starting to pay attention too and it was getting more and more difficult to pretend as though I wasn’t painfully aware of it.

“Wasn’t it the Statehouse balcony that you guys hung Vic from? Maybe someone was making a point?”

“Figured that’s where _I’d_ get hung from one day. Coup came full circle.” I dropped my head, groaning as Eve’s worked her way over the backs of my thighs. Up again, across the small of my back and further still to cup and caress my deltoids. I remembered her digging her nails in there earlier, her soft thighs pressed tight about my waist. Her ankles up on my shoulders, her hands gripping the headboard, the squeeze of her about me… “Typical. Bastard’s dead and he’s still fucking things up. Wanted to be doing this with ya all nice and slow…”

“We have all the time in the world.” Eve insisted, ignorant of the fact that for all the time I wanted it was this moment _now_ that I wished to take advantage of. Her hands traversed about my hips, slid along up my stomach and came to a rest in the center of my chest. I felt her pull flush to me; the press of her body firm in some places, whilst rich and soft in others. I could even feel the wet tendrils of her hair cling to me and the heat of her breath as she sighed. “Is it wrong that I feel… happy’s not the right word, but…”

“I know what you mean. It’s okay.” I turned and put my arms about her, pulling her in tight and pressing a kiss to her lips. My erection rested between us, not the least bit dissuaded by the cool sting of the water splashing down about us. “Whatever you’re feeling is fine.”

Her fingers dug into me; trailing across the scars on my back, tracing the brand mark. She took my lips in another kiss; one that felt wholesome and panged somehow with great need. I reached up between us and took her breasts in my hands; felt the slippery flesh shift beneath my fingers. She murmured softly and I thought she might have made to stop me but then her hand was down between us, locking about my dick and stroking.

I wasn’t sure what this was, but it sure as hell didn’t feel much like what we’d shared earlier. Didn’t feel like we were… celebrating the news of Marowski’s death, either. I struggle, even now, to find an accurate interpretation for what was going through our minds at that moment. Perhaps it is more accurate to suggest that weren’t thinking at all? We were just… reacting. Reacting to the touch, the emotion, the fact that we so loved one another with as much a desperate need for the comfort of our bodies as with our minds and our hearts?

Ordinarily, I would have found it a challenge to have gotten it up again in such short order but it was the touch of her hands, more than anything that I found so impossible to resist. Not to mention how long I had fantasized about fucking Eve in the shower… it was my number one fantasy of her and one I’d kept buried far too long.

This… this was hunger. This was a need to quell something inside of the both of us that simply hadn’t been met in what we had earlier shared. To have and hold and take and devour.

I loved the way the water slid and slipped down over all her myriad dips and curves. Her bronze skin looked and felt slippery; such that it seemed to shine and glisten. Her nipples were just as hard as she had earlier mentioned and my fingers didn’t much help in improving their condition. I dropped my head and took one between my lips; swishing my tongue up and around before flicking with the very tip. Spitting out water where it gathered too thickly beneath my tongue; sluicing into my mouth from where it trickled down over Eve’s chest.

My hands slid around her rump and squeezed the slippery globes hard; digging my nails in the way she’d done with my own earlier. Her palms cupped about my head; caressing, pushing my face tighter to her breast. She gasped and whimpered softly as I moved to the other; licked and sucked and twirled. Adjusting myself so that my cock found its purchase between her legs. Prodded her inside thigh before sliding on up to push to the smooth folds of her cunt.

I turned, pushing her up against the tiled wall surrounding the bath. Took her lips in another kiss and threading my tongue into her mouth. She moaned into me, wrapping a leg about my waist whilst keeping herself balanced on one leg. The angle was awkward, as was most of everything in that pokey little tub, but we managed; holding tight to one another as I thrust up into her, the pounding of the water on my back paling in comparison to that hot, hugging tightness pulling on me from down below.

It felt a selfish thing; for I doubted she would be able to come for such a rushed act but I don’t think Eve particularly cared for foreplay right then. She seemed to want to rush on into shit as much as I did. There was little that was tender in it; her arms and hands and mouth grasped and groped and nipped. She was making quite a bit of noise too; more than she had earlier and I’m quite certain I’d had better purchase when I’d been using the headboard of the bed to get right on up in there.

And then the need for thought became as obsolete as most everything else that existed outside those four walls. There existed _her_ and her alone. And ours was a hunger that was far from quelled.

Two to one odds though that she’d be wishing she’d put some towels down.

 

**XxXxXxXxXx**

 

“Ouch…”

“Well, you could have said no.” I said, smirking as Eve adjusted her shorts for perhaps the thousandth time. She’d been walking with a slight limp since we’d left the apartment building and I couldn’t help but feel a little pleased with myself.

“I don’t even know what got into me…” She remarked, and then promptly shoved her elbow into my side. “And don’t go there. I already know what you were about to say.”

I chuckled softly, scooping my hand in about her midsection and planting a swift kiss to her temple. We were closing in on the Statehouse now, having made surprisingly short work of descending the apartment complex. Eve had managed to convince me to surrender her underpants, with the insistence that it would prevent my, in her own words, Ghoul Gravy, from running down her legs. Disgusting though the allusion was, it got her point across and I surrendered the little lace underthings back to her possession.

Eve gave a soft grunt, reaching back out to snare my elbow between her hands and resting a considerable amount of weight against me as she walked. She had sluiced her damp hair back off of her forehead in such a way that it appeared as though a strong breeze had blasted right over top of her. And in spite of our passionate exchange only minutes earlier, she looked to be like a glass pane with a crack running through it. Only barely holding itself together with the tips of its metaphorical fingers.

I took her hand up in mine; lay a kiss to her knuckles and flashed what I could only hope was a smile of strong encouragement. The one she returned was shaky, at best. We’d held one another so tightly in the moments after I had come in the shower bay; our faces pressing together like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, longing to find those that patched to its curves and nooks and corners. It seemed a jarring juxtaposition compared to how distracted and withdrawn she now appeared.

I can’t pretend to know what was going through her mind. I wasn’t even sure what was going through mine. All I could say for certain was that we would face it together. That we were stronger for being at one another’s sides than we could have ever managed apart. 

Upon arriving at the Third Rail, I could see a large white sheet hanging from the balcony railing; no doubt obscuring Marowski’s body from the public. It was situated much closer to the balcony than I had anticipated and I assumed a few members of the Watch had hoisted it up out of the bars entryway. Jack appeared to have assumed command of the situation and approached the second he caught sight of us.

“Heya, Munch. Like what you were wearing earlier.” He said, flashing a light-hearted wink in Eve’s direction. She sighed, rolled her eyes back in her head and gave him a, ‘Well, really?’ sort of look. Getting the hint, he turned and gestured out towards the white sheet; lowering his voice. “I made the decision not to put up blockades. Thought it might draw more attention.”

“Smart thinking.” I murmured, taking stock of just how many people were paying mind to the situation as was. There were a couple of lookie loo’s who appeared for the most part simply curious of the white sheet and the presence of any number of Watchmen but it appeared as though the event had been for the most part bypassed by the general populace.

“Did anyone see it happen?” Eve asked, her eyes locked on the sheet and her bottom lip pinned between her teeth.

Jack tutted, pinning himself in on my right side and staring up towards the Statehouse as well. “Whoever it was picked a hell of a moment. Ham was out front, moving along this group a kids. Been on the sauce since midday, makin’ a bit of a scene, so’s I’m told. Marowski drops nearly-” And here he made a popping sound with his mouth. “-right on top of them. Scares the lot of ‘em as sober as if they were in Sunday Mass.”

“How many people saw it actually happen?” I asked, pinching out a cigarette from the pack in my pocket with my teeth. Eve fetched it out with two trembling fingers and fed it awkwardly between her own tightly pursed lips. I lit it, left her to it. Kid needed it more than I did.

“Including the kids; ten from the bar. Couple of bystanders on the main street. We’ve rounded them up and taken them up to your office for debriefing with Fahrenheit and Vinnie.”

I growled softly, glancing about at those few eyes that still lingered on the scene. That was a higher number than I was comfortable with. Any one person could talk to any indeterminable number of people, alone. “There’ll be no keeping this quiet. Too many eyes, too many mouths.”

Jack gave his trademark crooked toothed smile and lowered one glowing eye in a fey sort of wink; running a finger across his throat. “You want I go and cap ‘em, boss?”

I didn’t rise to the joke; thinking instead on how I might seriously address the situation. Shit needed to be kept quiet, or else we ran the risk of running both business and feet out of town. Didn’t need our reputation shooting up again, not after all the work that had gone into making Goodneighbor safe and sound for the folks currently nesting here. The financial implications alone would be astronomical.

“Maybe offer a financial incentive.” I muttered, to which Eve gave an ironic laugh; though one that was without malice, so far as I could tell.

“Big fat bribe.” She remarked, tapping ash from the tip of her cigarette and quirking her brow at me lightly. I leaned in and took a puff for myself, easing out the cloud of comforting vapours in an exhalation so smooth you might have mistaken me for being every bit as calm with this development as I plainly wasn’t. Inside, I felt such a trembling of rage, I wondered would I ever succeed in stilling it.

“Big fat bribe, yeah. With the fete on tomorrow, we don’t want people running scared; thinkin’ the towns back to the way it was before.”

Sensing that I might have been getting the slightest bit worked up, Eve lent a squeeze to my arm; gifting me that soft, sensitive look she so often resorted to in moments like this. She knew me well, you see and knew that in spite of my conspicuous condemnations of Marowski’s character, that I was a man simmering with resentment and ever so thinly repressed ire.

“Maybe you should go and talk to them? Through a second party it might come off as sort of threatening. You explain what’s going on and-”

“Thinkin’ the same thing, Munch.” I interjected, perhaps more sharply than I might have otherwise intended. True, I might have paid the sharpness of my tone more attention mind but my temper blunted me in that moment and so I didn’t. I turned to Jack, thinking only of what steps needed taking to directly deal with the situation at hand. “The Statehouse been searched?”

“Top to bottom.” He said, taking a bag of some unidentifiable food stuff out of his pocket and picking from it nonchalantly. “You lock your bedroom door before headin’ out tonight, boss?”

I felt my brow hit the lines of my forehead. This was not a question I wanted to hear. “You bet I did. Eve’s stuff is in there.”

“Well, it was unlocked just now. Someone’s either mighty handy with a lockpick-”

“No short list of contenders in this town.”

“- or someone had a copy of the key. You give a copy to anyone?”

“Fahrenheit. That’s it.” I gave a chew to the corner of my lip, thinking that I would need to address this point with Fahrenheit soon. “Anything missing?”

Jack glanced awkwardly towards Eve; such in a way that made me suspect it wasn’t because he got a front row seat to her unclothed bosoms earlier that night. “Maybe I uh… I mean, I don’t know if…”

Eve’s brow rose somewhat curtly, the cigarette bobbing between her index and middle fingers in what I considered to be a thoughtful manner. “Why do I get the feeling that someone was messing with my stuff?”

Jack continued to look about as awkward as a grown man could look. “I uh… don’t know… not like I had a headcount or anything but… you did have some knickers and shit drying in the laundry, right?” He made a few jabbing motions towards the ground; indicating the basement area of the Statehouse. “On a couple of clothes horses?”

Eve expression was an interterminal mixture of disgust and trepidation. She looked every bit as though she were trying not to vomit. “I’m… guessing they ain’t there anymore?”

“Not unless you bought them upstairs and flung ‘em all over the place like confetti.” Jack tilted his head back towards the sheet. “A couple of ‘em were on the bed. With that sheet. And I’m thinkin’ you wont wanna be keepin’ it boss.” His pupils shifted to the corner of his eyes and he hissed lightly from between his front teeth. “State it was in…”

This information hobbled me much more than the discovery of Marowski’s death. That someone had infiltrated my bedroom, my otherwise safe place was bad enough. But then to find out that they had further taken it upon themselves to go fingering through Eve’s personals and blow their bukkake all over my _bed_? It was taking every ounce of self-control I had not to run my fist into the nearest wall a half-dozen times. I kept it together for Eve’s sake, because she looked about ready to drop her bundle as was. Eyes flickering between mine and Jack’s faces, as though waiting for one of us to let her in on the joke. I kept my expression as poised as possible, not wanting to play into my own fear and scare her further. Much good that was. She looked about ready to shit her pants.

“Oh my God…” She said, voice trembling as she raked equally shaky fingers back through her wet hair. She started to pace, the wedges of her heels clicking against the cobblestones as she traversed her little semi-circle of distress. “Are you telling me that… someone went in there, to _John’s_ room and-?”

She couldn’t make herself finish the sentence. The look on Jack’s face was proof enough that something sick had gone down in that room. That I for once, wasn’t responsible for.

For his part, Jack looked awful sorry for Eve being in this predicament and when he spoke it was with a gentle nuance that nonetheless sounded like the soft thrum of well-oiled machinery.

“I’m guessin’ it was Marowski tryin’ to put a scare on ya’s and… someone’s caught him in the act and…” He made a wringing motion with his hands, as though it were necessary to further clarify the state of Marowski’s neck after a hanging.

“Narrows down the suspect list.” I said, sliding my hand supportively into the sway of Eve’s back and guiding her along closer to the Third Rail. Jack trailed at our side, heavy footed as always and munching away as he came. “Who was in the Statehouse tonight?”

“Vinnie and Hank were on ground floor rotation. No one on the upper floor as per your instructions this afternoon. Fahrenheit was in the basement level; following up with one of the Triggermen we got in lockup when it happened. All a that group you were travellin’ with were out at BC’s BBQ thing – speak of the devil…”

Adrian had appeared from the adjacent entryway of the Warehouse he now called home; puffing as though he had hurtled all of the stairs in one go. Most likely had, given how seriously the guy took his duties. He had shed his Watchmen attire and was dressed in a white tee and casual slacks. A frilly apron with the words ‘Kiss the Cook’ emblazoned across the front was tied in a neat bow about his neck and smeared liberally with grease stains.

“Sorry, boss.” He huffed, coming to a halt at Eve’s side and pausing long enough to wipe his forehead off on the base of the apron. “Came as soon as I heard.”

“Brother you’re off the clock.” I said, jerking my thumb back the way he’d come. “Go back to your party, we can handle this.”

“You kidding? I just ran down four flights of stairs, I ain’t goin’ nowhere for at least the next ten minutes. Might as well catch me up on what’s happening.” He straightened up, fixing his eyes on the sheet; cooking grease streaked across his face from where he had been attempting to clean himself up. “It’s true, then?”

“As the dawn breaks yellow.” Jack stated, stepping closer to Adrian so as to further clue him in on the circumstances of the situation. I caught sight of Dr Amari observing from off to the far left of the square and made my way over to her; Eve keeping hold of my arm and fairly much allowing herself to be led. She kept alternating from between staring up at the sheet to staring anywhere but. I think she was attempting to consolidate within her own mind just how she felt about the whole thing and having someone steer her around like a toy car proved helpful.

“Heya, doc.” I called, drifting to Amari’s side. She gave me a small nod in greeting before returning her eyes to the Statehouse balcony. Her thin lips were pinched off to the side to form an almost sour looking purse. 

“Well… can’t say I’m altogether aggrieved by this development.”

“Just sad I didn’t get my hands on the bastard myself.” I turned and looked at her. “What’s your take?”

She sighed, glancing a hand distractedly over the back of her neck. Most of her hair had come loose from the banana clip she’d used to section it off and she looked far more weary then I could ever remember seeing her.

“I’ll of course need some time to look the body over but… what I found interesting is that Ham reported hearing no noise prior and then during the lynching.” She indicated towards the Third Rail with a flick of her index finger. “According to him, Marowski simply dropped.”

This struck me as more than a little curious, to say the least. Getting a body the size of Marowski’s up over the railing was challenge enough. It would be certain to make a noise.

“Without a sound, huh?”

“Suggests he might have already been dead.” Eve said and Amari turned to glance at her with something akin to surprise. She had been so very quiet, you see, that I don’t think the doctor even realized that she had been standing beside me until now. “Even if his neck had snapped, you would have most likely heard a struggle up on the balcony beforehand.”

“That was my thinking precisely. Anyway, we’ll know more when I complete the autopsy.” Amari glanced up at me now, crooking one lean eyebrow perceptibly. I think she knew very well that my thoughts on any matter concerning Marowski, were not likely to be charitable ones. “Assuming of course that an investigation is what you wish?”

“Yeah. I want to know what was going on here.” I whistled up the balcony to Vinnie and Hank; who had taken vigil over the body and its extempore shroud. “You can bring him up over the railing now, boys. Nothing to be gained from keepin’ him dangling there all night.”

As they set to work carefully negotiating Marowski’s big fat lump of a body up over the railing (all whilst attempting to keep him under cover, mind) a woman limped awkwardly out from the left hand alley; raising her hand towards me as she entered the lantern lights framing the entryway of the Third Rail.

“John! Hey!” She called; a greeting I might very well have returned, if not for the rather flagrant distraction that shortly thereafter followed it. Namely, that of Vinnie, who in attempting to hoist Marowski’s fat ass over the railing, losing his grip at the last moment. Of course, this would surprise no one who knew Marowski in life. Guy was fairly oily most of the time, anyhow.

Marowski dropped dramatically, pulling loose the knot in the noose that was keeping him suspended above the entryway. He plunged out from beneath the sheet, providing me with proof enough that – _yes_ , this was without a doubt the big blithering asshole that I’d been meaning to put the hurt on – and swung in the doorway of the Third Rail like a pendulum of the most morbid Grandfather clock conceivable.

The woman faltered in her approach, screaming as though she were auditioning for the part of some two-bit extra on the _Silver Shroud radio show_ and shrank away from the scene; covering her face with both hands

“Oh my gosh! Oh no, no, no, no – John, please tell me that isn’t a dead body hanging out of your bedroom – please?”

Though the scene wasn’t at all funny, I was unable to keep the reflexive smile from forming on my face as I made my way over to the girls’ side. Making a big show of pretending as though Marowski’s body wasn’t there at all.

“Hey there, Charlotte. Glad you could make it.” I leaned over to plant a kiss to her cheek. One which she immediately recoiled from; though not from disgust so much as patent, and muchly earned, irritation.

“Don’t you ignore me, John! What is that man doing hanging from there? Did he commit… suicide or something?”

I glanced up nonchalantly at Marowski as the boys hastily redoubled their efforts to haul him back out of sight. Jack and Adrian didn’t help with the ridiculousness of the situation; each having taken one of Marowski’s feet in hand and attempting to shove him back up to where he’d been earlier suspended. Marowski was simply getting jiggled around like he was performing some absurd lopsided Scottish fling.

“What, him? Nah baby, wasn’t no suicide. That’s just a Christmas decoration.”

Charlotte gave me a long, withering look. “Johnathan.”

I offloaded an equally dramatic sounding sigh; mirroring her own expression with interest. “ _Charlotte_.”

“Don’t go trying to play cute with me about this; I _know_ who that guy is! That’s…” She snapped her fingers in Marowski’s direction; a pointless exercise because she never succeeded in producing a sound when she did so. “– ol’… whatshisname. That creepy old sleazebag with the mutton chops from the hotel.”

I tilted my head at Marowski quizzically, as though this fact had been lost on me until now. “There is a vague resemblance…”

“You punched him in the chin one year for cupping me on the butt! What, am I speaking Swahili right now? _Why_ is he hanging from the Statehouse?”

You might recall my saying once that the more certain people got riled up around me, the more I continued to push their buttons, yeah? Well, poor Charlotte was right up there at the head of the leaderboard when it came to teasing. Even now, with everything that was going on and I couldn’t resist. But hey, that’s what big brothers are for, right?

“Thought it looked a little stark, figured it could use some bloated dead guy just to really put us in the Christmas spirt.”

Her look withered even further at this. I suspected she might in fact have been on the verge of biting me. “This is _not_ funny, John. You said in your letters that the town was different. That it would be safe for all of us to come here.”

“And it is.” I said, waving a hand flippantly at Marowski’s jiggling corpse in the background. “Don’t let one lynched fat guy tell you otherwise.”

“He’s _hanging_ from your bedroom.”

“He’s hanging _perpendicular_ to my bedroom. It’s a neighboring situation, at best.”

Charlotte rolled her eyes back, cupped her hands into claws and all but shrieked her rage at the night sky.

“Uh! This is what you always do, you never take things _seriously_!!”

Eve, who until this point had been mulling things over with Dr Amari, sensed that the situation might have been escalating and came stumbling and limping over with that situation resolving smile firmly plastered on her face.

“Hey there, Charlotte. Long journey, I bet.” She chirruped and Charlotte all but expunged the remainder of her rage in seeing someone that she currently liked a great deal more than me.

“Oh my God, Eve. You’re still here.” She murmured sympathetically, reaching out and giving Eve the sort of hug that a sister really ought to have bestowed upon her loving brother. “Oh, god bless. I thought you would have escaped by now.”

“Well, you know… he has money.” Eve said, earning a commiseratory laugh from Charlotte in response. She made a nod towards the now newly swaddled up cacoon that was Marowski, dropping her voice to a soothing timbre similar to that which Jack had only just recently directed at her. “I know it looks bad, hun but the town really is looking great. Compared to how it used to be… yeah. This is just… weird.”

“And if it makes you feel any better, the guy had it comin’.” I clarified, reaching into my pocket and extracting my cigarettes. I pressed one of the filters between my lips, lit the tip and drew back deeply. Some of that rage still simmered there down in the depths of me but it had petered out some from my playful ribbing of Charlotte. Fancy having made the poor girl bear the brunt of my frustrations.

And in spite of Eve’s assurances, she still looked concerned. Reaching up to twine a limp strand of auburn hair about her finger; perpetually anxious looking features pinched all the more dramatically from the stress she was not even barely containing.

“John… you _know_ I’m not trying to be an asshole about this.” I glanced at her sidelong, a look that clearly got her defences up. “I’m not! You _know_ why I’m so worried. I mean, it’s hard enough for me to make the journey. All things considered. But for Mom, it’s a crazy risk and now I feel like she’s just as much at risk in this town as she is out there…”

I felt as though the blood might have frozen in my veins at her words and I stared at Charlotte now, with more seriousness in my voice and in my eyes than I’d likely ever had cause to direct at her.

“Don’t you play with me now. You’re only going to hurt my feelin’s you go and make shit like that up.”

For the first time since she’d stepped out from behind the Statehouse, Charlotte gave a genuinely warm smile; reaching out to squeeze her fingers about my bicep.

“What? You really think Mom was gonna miss _another_ birthday?”

Eve chuckled lightly, pinching the cigarette from out of my hand to steal a quick puff. “Whose birthday is that, then?”

There was silence in response to her query, with Charlotte glancing back and forth between us with a sardonic smile forming on her features. Finally, she offloaded an incredulous little snort and quirked a brow at Eve as though questioning her sanity on the matter.

“You’re kidding, right _?_ ” She asked, blinking with such rapidity you might have thought her attempting to shake loose the dust from her lashes. When Eve continued to look ignorant, Charlotte turned on me with a look that I wasn’t sure I liked. It seemed to suggest that I was somehow in trouble. “You didn’t tell Eve it was your birthday tomorrow?”

I might have answered, if not for the equally wounded and thunderous expression that blossomed on Eve’s face like a flower bud erupting from the snow. I wasn’t sure why but I suddenly felt as though I was rapidly descending down shits creek with a hole in the bow and only toothpicks for paddles.

It seemed a strange thing to be concerning oneself with; given the ever more pressing matter at hand. Marowski was dead. What repercussions this would have for Goodneighbor, I couldn’t even begin to imagine. The political ramifications alone were potentially astronomical. The idea that I had been potentially secretive about a birthday, really didn’t factor into it.

Most troubling was that whoever wanted Marowski dead had clearly intended to make a statement piece out of it. One that I couldn’t help but think was directed at me. Whose interests could possibly run concurrent on this matter? For what reason had Marowski gone and made that great big hullabaloo that afternoon if this was only to be the end result? Was all this fluff about the coup merely that; fluff? I just couldn’t wrap my head around what the fuck was going on…

“It’s your _birthday tomorrow?!_ ” Came Eve’s Molerat like screech of reproach from some place beyond my contemplations. And though I knew it wouldn’t win me any favors, I went ahead and smiled. For what other woman but her would think that this revelation was the most startling one to be had at a time such as this?

 - ** _EC -_**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks everyone for reading and hope that you enjoyed! The next project I will be working on will be mine and Stormus’s shared fic ‘Fifty Shades of Earl Grey’, with some time devoted to the next instalment of The Rolling Ranch. If you enjoyed the update, feel free to leave a comment, a kudos or a small, brightly colored avian friend for me to enjoy. I am particularly partial to Lovebirds, but they must be sent as a twinset or else they are liable to become sexually confused and start humping the dog. My dogs virginity must be maintained at all costs if he is to enjoy a proper Catholic wedding one day!
> 
> Sending you all my metaphorical hugs, high fives and grudgingly tolerated inappropriate cups to body parts otherwise preferred to be left alone :) 
> 
> All my love,  
> ~MadamMortis~ xxx ooo

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Thanks so much for reading everyone and I do hope to have the next chapter out to you very soon! If you like, please be kind enough to let me know! Leave a Kudos or a comment or whatever. Hope you amazing wonderful people are all doing well in your corner of the globe and please be safe and happy in your various goings on! Can't wait to catch you next time!
> 
> All my love  
> ~MadamMortis~ xxx ooo


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